PhonePe recently 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. PhonePe said, the Indus Appstore will allow 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% of Indians’ language preferences.
The app store adds in a brand new short-video based discovery feature, to make new app discovery more engaging for consumers. It also stated that Indus Appstore will allow 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. Thereafter, Indus will also provide its own in-app billing and catalog
solutions, but these will remain strictly optional for app developers.
Further, to accelerate the developer registrations, Indus is offering zero listing fees to developers for one year. Indus Appstore is available on the website and the timing of the launch gains more relevance given the recent commotion from the Indian startup ecosystem for a freer market competition in the mobile app store, PhonePe said.
Sameer Nigam, CEO and Founder PhonePe added, “Indus Appstore challenges the status quo, ushering in an era of healthier 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.”
