Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are some of the top brands whose apps are featured on the Indian fintech PhonePe’s Indus Appstore. This Android app store was launched on Wednesday to challenge Google’s monopoly in its biggest user market.
To compete with Google Play Store, PhonePe has equipped Indus Appstore with a range of unique and personalized features as well as developer-friendly terms. Indus Appstore offers round-the-clock support in 12 regional languages (as well as English), according to the $12 billion Walmart-backed fintech company.
The app store boasts over 200,000 apps across 45 categories, including big names such as Flipkart, Spotify, and Paytm. It supports third-party payments and charges no listing fees. PhonePe’s co-founder and CEO Sameer Nigam emphasized at a press conference that developers using third-party payment services and gateways will still face no fees.
Several other features, such as app discovery via short videos and the ability to sign in with a mobile number instead of an email address, are available on Indus Appstore. It also offers “smart updates” that provide users with updates during high-data availability hours on their phones.
Indus Appstore is the latest in a series of efforts by app developers globally to counter Google and Apple’s duopoly on mobile apps and challenge what many have described as unfair terms.
Nigam stated that India’s large smartphone user base of 750-800 million people has driven the creation of Indus Appstore, which was established to offer an alternative perspective on app consumption in the nation. He also emphasized that competition will encourage Google to enhance its Play Store terms in India, and he mentioned plans to collaborate with multiple smartphone manufacturers in the near future.
Indus Appstore also pledges to provide greater transparency to developers, including informing them if and why their apps are removed. PhonePe plans to monetize the app store through developer charges for app discovery and through ad placements.
Ivan Mehta contributed to this report.
