The Indus Appstore is Made in India to compete globally: Amitabh Kant

Global competition: PhonePe’s Indus Appstore is Me in India to compete at a global level, according to G20 Sherpa and former Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

Indus Appstore was launched in Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on Thursday as a homegrown alternative for Android apps, becoming a direct challenger to Google Play Store.

Terming it a disruption, Kant said such innovations have been pioneered through American BigTech firms like Google, Apple and Amazon. In China,  Tencent and Alibaba have been forerunners in launching product innovations for developers.

“( Indus Appstore) will stimulate huge innovation in India…will give developers right tools and visibility, and localisation will help empower rural India,” Kant said.

He ded that launch was timely for Android developers, and has potential to bridge expectation gap between developers and app store providers on appropriate platform.

“I am confident that PhonePe will take an India first approach to enabling innovation at scale,” he said, which is in line with  "Make in India" initiative. 

India is second-largest smartphone market in world, and launch of Indus Appstore by Walmart-backed PhonePe leverages this opportunity.

Indus Appstore, launched in 12 languages, has a short video-led discovery mechanism for applications. It will also not charge developers for a year to list ir apps, relying on an vertisement model for revenue. With access to over 2 lakh mobile apps and games across 45 categories, Appstore also levies no extra charge on payments me by third-party apps.
 

Kant also emphasised potential of Indus Appstore to democratise tech innovation across rural areas and smaller towns. “With 1,400 dialects and 22 languages, this will cause a huge disruption and create a great India story,” he said.