PhonePe Launches Indus Appstore. ‘Made In India’ Alternative To Google Play Store? – News18

PhonePe, the popular Walmart-backed digital payments app, has launched its own App Store called ‘Indus Appstore.’ This move is said to challenge Google’s monopoly with its Play Store in mobile app distribution on Android.

The major incentive for Android developers to publish on Indus Appstore would be zero commission on in-app sales and app purchases. Google and Apple—in contrast—charge a commission of 15-30% on all in-app transactions and app sales from the developers. PhonePe will also not charge app developers a listing fee for the first initial year but will move on to a “nominal” charge after that. PhonePe also said that “Developers will be free to integrate any payment gateway of their choice inside their own apps.”

Developers can already start uploading their apps on the platform. In addition, with a better focus on operating in India, the Indus Appstore will support 12 Indian languages and feature a phone number-based login system for ease of use.

Speaking of the launch, Akash Dongre, CPO & Co-Founder, 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 Playstore – for distributing their apps.”

He added, “Indus Appstore hopes to provide app developers a credible alternative to the Google Playstore – one that is more localized and offers better app discovery and consumer engagement. We are excited to open up the Indus Appstore Developer Platform today and invite all developers to list their app on the Made-in-India app store.”

More benefits with the Indus App Store include AI-powered real-time monitoring of app vitals during a new version launch and real-time analytics, deep insights on industry trends, and competitor analysis to help developers adopt best practices.