PhonePe, today announced the consumer launch of its Indus Appstore, at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. Indus Appstore is PhonePe's attempt at creating a more competitive and localized mobile app store economy for India, which is already the largest mobile apps download market globally.
The company is reportedly also planning to foray into e-commerce. This development comes at a time, when the two behemoths of the segment, Apple app store and Google's Playstore have been facing competition and questions from all end, internationally. The two have been questioned for deploying unfair practices in the international forum, including Europe and India.
Indus Appstore allows Indian consumers to download over 2 lakh mobile apps and games, across 45 categories. Users will be able to discover these apps conveniently in 12 Indian languages, thereby catering to 95 per cent of Indians' language preferences. The app store also offers a brand new short-video based discovery feature, to make new app discovery more engaging for consumers.
Swimming with sharks
In a global first move, Indus Appstore allows app and game developers to choose any 3rd-party payment gateway for in-app billing, and they will not be charged any commission if they use an external payment gateway. At a later date, Indus will also provide its own in-app billing and catalog solutions, but these will remain strictly optional for app developers. Further, to accelerate developer registrations, Indus is offering zero listing fees to developers for one year.
The timing of Indus Appstore's launch gains more relevance given the recent clamor from the Indian startup ecosystem for more free market competition in the mobile app store space.
Sameer Nigam, CEO and Founder PhonePe added, "Indus Appstore challenges the status quo, ushering in an era of more healthy competition in the mobile app marketplace, which in turn should help create a more democratic and vibrant Indian digital ecosystem. Indus Appstore embodies our commitment to building a truly inclusive digital ecosystem where every Indian user feels at home." Indus Appstore is available for download at https://www.indusappstore.com.
About Indus Appstore:
Indus Appstore is a native Android-based mobile app store, designed to fulfill the localized and cultural needs of Indian consumers. With an extensive array of categories it seeks to provide users a localized, contextual and a personalized experience. Indus Appstore is available in English and 12 Indian languages, which allows users to explore the app store in their preferred language.
