PhonePe, an Indian company, has unveiled it’s very own Appstore in India, entering the fray to challenge the Google Play Store in the country’s vast Android market. The newly launched Appstore proudly carries the tag “Made in India” and boasts a range of enticing features designed to appeal to local app developers.
This move comes as part of PhonePe’s strategic initiatives to launch a “Made in India” Android marketplace. The platform, named the Indus AppStore Developer Platform, was launched on a Saturday, aiming to attract developers with zero commission fees and no in-app purchase charges. Earlier this year, PhonePe had hinted at it’s plans to develop an app store catering to Indian developers and users.
Indus Appstore offers several compelling features. Firstly, it eliminates any fees for in-app purchases, which can be as high as 30 percent when utilizing Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Secondly, developers can list their apps on this platform without incurring any initial fees or commissions during the first year. After the first year, a nominal fee will be applicable to developers, significantly lower than what Google Play Store and Apple App Store charge.
Thirdly, the Indus Appstore supports apps in 12 Indian languages, in addition to English. It also boasts an Indian-based support team committed to swiftly addressing user inquiries and concerns.
PhonePe, headquartered in Bengaluru and boasting 450 million registered users, invites developers to register themselves and upload their apps onto the newly announced Indus Appstore. The company has also initiated collaborations with phone manufacturers to facilitate the distribution of it’s app store.
Akash Dongre, CPO and Co-Founder of Indus Appstore at the launch said, “India is poised to have over 1 billion smartphone users by 2026 offering us a massive opportunity to build a new-age, localized Android app store. Despite being such a large consumer market, app developers have always been forced to work with only one app store – Google Play Store – for distributing their apps. Indus Appstore hopes to provide app developers with a credible alternative to the Google Play Store – one that is more localized and offers better app discovery and consumer engagement“.
It is worth noting that PhonePe is not the first Indian startup to take on the Google Play Store by launching it’s own app store. Previously, Paytm introduced it’s own mini app store to compete with Google, while Samsung and Xiaomi also rolled out their respective app stores. However, these app stores are limited to their own devices and are not available to the general public.
Despite these efforts, challenging Google’s dominance remains a formidable task. Google still stands as the primary marketplace for downloading Android apps, largely due to the fact that Android devices come pre-installed with Google’s Play Store. It will be interesting to see how PhonePe competes with Google as it enters the Android marketplace with it’s own offering.
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