The Walmart-backed fintech PhonePe unveiled the Indus AppStore Developer Platform on Saturday in an effort to attract Android developers in Google’s biggest market. It promised no platform fee and no commission on in-app purchases.
The firm, with its Bengaluru headquarters, which boasts over 450 million users registered on its self-titled payments app, announced that developers can begin writing and uploading their apps on the “made-in-India” app store as of right now. The app store offers a ton of regionally relevant features, including support for third-party payment providers, 12 Indian languages, and a login method based on phone numbers. PhonePe has also partnered with phone makers for distribution.
According to PhonePe, there would be no listing fee for developers for the first year but a “nominal” price after that. In addition, the business would not charge a commission on in-app purchases, in contrast to Google’s take rate of 15% to 30%. In response to complaints from Indian developers who were unsatisfied with Google’s slow answers and U.S. time zone operation hours, PhonePe, which dominates the UPI-based payments market in India, announced it had established an India-based team to assist developers.
The debut of the Indus Appstore Developer Platform coincides with a growing dissatisfaction among Indian businesses and startups with Google, whose Android mobile operating system powers more than 95% of all smartphones in the nation.
However, despite the scale of the industry, Indian app developers have always been compelled to collaborate with just one app store for the purpose of selling their products, according to a statement from Akash Dongre, co-founder and chief product officer of Indus Appstore. (Although Apple is boosting its footprint there, the company still has a small market share there.)
The struggle against what local business owners claim are excessive fees charged by the Google Play Store has been waged before by others than PhonePe. In recent years, several Indian companies have pleaded with New Delhi for help, and some have staked their future on an arrangement between Paytm and a small app store.
The startup supported by Walmart, formerly associated with Flipkart, expresses optimism that the Indian regulatory efforts to encourage Google to embrace third-party app stores and incorporate features tailored to local needs, such as real-time analytics, comprehensive industry trend analysis, and competitor assessments, will yield better results than previous endeavors.
Over the past decade, Google has poured more than $10 billion into India, a crucial international market, as it seeks to identify the following significant growth opportunities beyond the United States. Despite having a user base exceeding 700 million in South Asia, Google is facing growing scrutiny and government regulations.
The corporation was compelled to make a number of modifications to its contracts with phone makers and other partners after receiving two antitrust fines in India a year ago. The announcement of Google’s compliance came weeks after the company issued a warning that modifications to its terms of service will increase the cost of handsets in the second-largest smartphone market in the world and encourage the development of unvetted apps that pose risks to personal and governmental security.
The launch of the app store is PhonePe’s most recent push as it diversifies into a number of different sectors. The $12 billion firm debuted an e-commerce app this year, Share Market, an app that enables users to open trading accounts and invest in stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs, last month.
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