With an aim to rival Google’s monopoly, here’s another Indian player to launch its app store. PhonePe has now introduced the ‘Made in India‘ Indus Appstore developer platform with a number of perks like no fee on in-app purchases. Here’s a look at the details.
PhonePe’s Indus Appstore Makes its Entry
The Indus Appstore, as per PhonePe, will help make a new way for app developers to attract Android users in India who currently rely on the Play Store. For this, there are a number of attractions too. For starters, there won’t be any fee for in-app purchases, which otherwise goes up to 30% in the case of the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
Secondly, Indus Appstore won’t charge anything for developers to list their apps in the first year. This will become chargeable thereafter but developers will have to pay a nominal fee. Although, there’s no word on the details as of now.
Developers will also get to list their apps in 12 Indian languages apart from English and will also get an India-based support team for the ease of getting their queries solved on time. Plus, there will be real-time analytics and AI-powered real-time monitoring of important details. For new apps, PhonePe has the Launch Pad for better discoverability. For users, there will be timely and faster app updates.
Speaking of the launch, Akash Dongre, CPO and Co-Founder of Indus Appstore 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.“
PhonePe has opened doors for developers to register on the Indus Appstore and list their apps via www.indusappstore.com.
For the uninitiated, PhonePe isn’t the only one to dive into the app store space. Back in 2020, Paytm came up with its mini app store as an attempt to compete with Google. Samsung, Xiaomi, and more brands also have their app stores but it seems like Google’s dominance can’t be hampered that easily despite backlash over its practices! It remains to be seen if PhonePe’s venture becomes fruitful and if people start adopting it for their app needs. What are your thoughts on this? Share with us in the comments below.
