PhonePe launches Indus Appstore, a made-in-India rival to Google Play Store

Indus Appstore is a made-in-India Android app store designed as a challenger to Google Play Store

Walmart-owned PhonePe on February 21 launched the much-anticipated Indus Appstore, a homegrown Android app store designed as a challenger to Google Play Store, to consumers in India, the world’s second-largest smartphone market.

The Indus Appstore app is currently available on the company’s website, which consumers can download and manually install the app on their smartphones. It will also offer a mobile number-based login system to attract consumers without email accounts.

The launch comes about four months after the digital payments firm opened up its app marketplace to Android developers, inviting them to publish their app on the platform, as first reported by Moneycontrol in September 2023.

PhonePe claims that users can currently download over 2 lakh mobile apps and games across 45 categories from the app marketplace. It aims to increase this figure to 5 lakh apps by the end of this year.

The app store will also offer a new short-video based discovery feature, in order to make the process of discovering new apps more engaging for consumers.

With the Indus Appstore, the company is seeking to capitalise on India’s booming app economy. Indians spent about 1.19 trillion hours on mobile apps in 2023, up from 954 billion hours in 2021, as per app intelligence firm data.ai. The country is also the world’s largest market in terms of app downloads.

The launch also comes amid an ongoing standoff between Google and some of the country’s top startups and internet firms over the former’s Play Store policies and commission fees.

Developer platform launch

For Android developers, Indus Appstore allows them to list their apps in 12 Indian languages apart from English, as well as upload media and videos to their app listings in these languages.

More importantly, the app marketplace will charge a zero percent fee on in-app purchases compared to the 15-30 percent fee levied by Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

PhonePe CEO Sameer Nigam said that the app listings on the platform would be free for the first year, until April 1, 2025, following which a nominal annual fee would be charged.

Developers will also be able to integrate any third-party payment gateway of their choice on the platform for in-app billing and Indus Appstore won't levy any fee for these transactions, he said.

At a later date, Indus Appstore will also provide its own in-app billing and catalog solutions, but they will be optional for app developers, he said.

Indus Appstore claims to offer 24x7 dedicated India-based support via email or chatbot with "assured assistance and quick resolution of queries," in a bid to address a common pain point that developers have often faced with Google and Apple. The platform will also offer dedicated account managers.

PhonePe had previously said that it has struck partnerships with OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) such as Nokia and Lava to integrate the app store into their devices as of November 2023.

Striking partnerships with more OEMs will be key for Indus App Store to drive adoption among consumers due to the friction involved in consumers manually sideloading apps on their smartphones.

Through these OEM deals, Nigam said that they hope to be available in about 25-30 percent of the devices in India, which could translate to about 200-250 million devices.

“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” Nigam said.

"Indus Appstore embodies our commitment to building a truly inclusive digital ecosystem where every Indian user feels at home" he said.

This launch comes at a time when Google is facing regulatory scrutiny over the business practices of its app marketplaces Google Play in India and several other markets.

In October 2022, the country's antitrust watchdog Competition Commission of India (CCI) had directed the tech giant to modify its conduct towards smartphone makers and app developers through a range of corrective measures besides imposing a penalty through two separate orders.

As part of these measures, CCI had directed Google to allow third-party app stores on Google Play, however, The National Company Law Appellate (NCLAT) subsequently set aside this direction in March 2023.

In recent years, Google has faced intense backlash from Indian developers over its app policies, particularly after the search giant's announcement in October 2020 that it will begin enforcing a mandatory integration of its Play billing system across the world. Several app developers have mentioned that these commission fees are "extremely high" and "unfair".

Since then, Google has taken several steps to modify its policies including lowering its commission fee and introducing third-party billing for in-app purchases. The tech giant claims these changes comply with the CCI's order, but many local app developers disagree and have challenged it in court.

Indus OS acquisition

That said, the launch of Indus Appstore has been on the cards for a while. In July 2022, PhonePe acquired an indigenous Android content and app discovery platform Indus OS after a long protracted legal battle.

In April 2023, PhonePe co-founder Sameer Nigam had first confirmed plans to build an app store in an interview with Moneycontrol.

Apart from the annual fees, Indus Appstore will likely monetise its offering through advertising and value-added services for developers. App marketers can get "boosted visibility" on search, promote their apps on dedicated video slots and run custom targeted ad campaigns. according to the website. One can also create rich media ads in Indian languages and avail translation services from experts, likely to enable developers to list apps in various Indian languages.

For developers, Indus Appstore will offer the ability to roll out newer app versions to relevant user cohorts, test features with a select audience and have better control over their app releases. It will also offer real-time tracking of app installs and uninstalls, exploring competitor trends and a "transparent rating system".

It's worth noting that PhonePe already offers a 'Switch' platform on its eponymous payments app, that offers users an app-like experience across a range of categories including food, grocery, shopping, travel, and healthcare among others.

PhonePe rival Paytm also offers a similar mini app store that provides users an app-like experience through a collection of custom-built mobile websites.

Founded in December 2015 by Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer, PhonePe has amassed over 510 million registered users until now. In the past year, the company has raised over $850 million from investors such as General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, TVS Capital and its parent firm Walmart.