PhonePe officially launches Android-based Indus Appstore

PhonePe has officially launched its Indus Appstore, an Android-based mobile app store, aimed at enhancing India's mobile app ecosystem. The announcement was made during an event at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on Wednesday, February 21.

Earlier, Akash Dongre, Co-founder and CPO of Indus Appstore told CNBC-TV18 that end users can expect to see the app on their smartphones by March.

The Indus Appstore, with a focus on creating a competitive and localized mobile app store economy for India, offers users the ability to download over 2,00,000 mobile apps and games spanning 45 categories. The app discovery feature is available in 12 Indian languages, accommodating the language preferences of 95% of Indian users. Additionally, the platform introduces a new short-video-based discovery feature to engage consumers in app exploration, PhonePe said in a press release.

Indus Appstore allows developers to choose any third-party payment gateway for in-app billing, without incurring any commission charges. This flexibility will be in effect until April 1, 2025. While Indus plans to introduce its own in-app billing and catalogue solutions later, these will remain optional for developers.

The launch of Indus Appstore is timely, responding to the recent calls from the Indian startup ecosystem for increased free market competition within the mobile app store landscape.

Sameer Nigam, CEO and Founder of PhonePe, emphasised the platform's commitment to fostering healthy competition in the mobile app marketplace, promoting a more democratic and vibrant digital ecosystem in India. Indus Appstore is now available for download at https://www.indusappstore.com.

Announced last October, Indus Appstore is positioned as a native Android-based mobile app store to rival Google's Play Store. Nigam had said during the announcement, "“There are fewer e-mail IDs than smartphones in the country, which means people don’t even get personalised recommendations. We are going to change that. We are going to become a mobile-first market.”