PhonePe's Indus Appstore for Android devices has surpassed 1 million installations after its launch last month, as announced by the company on March 18. It says 45% of the users of this indigenous appstore come from Tier 2 cities, indicating its widespread popularity beyond major metropolitan areas. The availability of the appstore in various Indian languages like Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Telugu, and others has helped in achieving the 1 million-mark.
Akash Dongre, co-founder and CPO of Indus Appstore says, “This remarkable achievement is a reflection of our team's unwavering commitment and hard work. We will continue innovating and improving our app store experience to ensure that we remain at the forefront of delivering a superior product experience for both developers and consumers.This is just the beginning, and we are excited about the future of app discovery in India.”
The company also disclosed its strategy to roll out new updates every 10 days, introducing features like video-led app discovery and voice search, which are currently in development. Additionally, they are working on enhanced merchandising tools and video-based app promotion opportunities for app developers.
PhonePe highlighted its partnerships with OEM manufacturers such as Nokia and LAVA for the Indus Appstore and mentioned ongoing discussions with other major smartphone makers. They aim to achieve pre-installation on 250-300 million devices by the year's end, with partnerships with smartphone manufacturers in reaching this goal.
Fintech startup PhonePe launched the Indus Appstore on February 21, aiming to compete with Google Play Store on android devices. This app store offers Indian consumers access to over two lakh mobile apps and games across 45 categories. Users can explore these apps in 12 Indian languages and benefit from a short-video-based discovery feature. PhonePe claimed its app store facilitates faster updates and smart updates on the go.
"The default in Google is still that you can update apps automatically only when you have Wi-Fi. India is not a broadband market, it is a 5G market," Sameer Nigam, founder and CEO, PhonePe states.
"Thanks to data prices in India being super cheap and most people having moved to monthly and quarterly plans, everyone has got 1 GB of data a day. Most people don’t consume that data. With a smart optimiser, you can update apps in the background based on how much data is being consumed in the wee hours of the morning," Nigam adds.
The CEO of PhonePe revealed the Indus Appstore permits app and game developers to select any third-party payment gateway for in-app billing, without charging any commission. Additionally, Indus will introduce its own in-app billing and catalogue solutions in the future, but these will be optional for developers.
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