PhonePe Launches Indus Appstore in India, Will Not Charge App Listing Fee for the First Year

PhonePe launched its Android-based mobile app marketplace, Indus Appstore, in India on Wednesday, February 21. The app store was launched by the Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw during a hybrid event. The Walmart-owned fintech firm said its new app storefront intends to solve the major pain point of the lack of regional language content in marketplaces. The Indus Appstore will be available in English and 12 Indian regional languages. It also comes with features such as video-led app discovery, mobile-based logins, and AI-driven app recommendations.

Indus supports regional languages like Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, and more. It comes with a toggle button on the top through which users can switch between languages. The toggle not only changes the language of the content on the interface but also app names, app trailers and videos, as well as app descriptions. PhonePe said that the translations were done at the company's end.

Further, the platform also allows users to search in any of the 12 regional languages to see search results in those languages. PhonePe founder and CEO Sameer Nigam said that even transliterations in regional languages will fetch results. Android smartphone users can download and install the app here.

Indus Appstore has 200,000 apps at its launch, the company said. Some of the prominent apps include Flipkart, Disney+ Hotstar, Myntra, Zomato, Swiggy, Snapchat, and more. The number also includes several thousand games, where it is heavily focused. The platform has three major categories in gaming which are casual gaming, heavy gaming and real money gaming (RMG).

App listings on the developer platform will be free for the first year but after that, an annual fee will be levied. PhonePe also stated that the marketplace will not charge developers any platform fee or commission for in-app payments if separate payment gateways are used. In contrast, Apple and Google charge between 15 percent and 25 percent commission for the same and do not allow integration of other payment services.

Additionally, the platform allows users to do a mobile number and OTP-based logins instead of using emails. For app recommendations, the developer platform uses artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithms and uses location data. There are a couple of smart features as well such as smart updates that will allow for faster updations to the latest version. The personalised storage management feature will recommend to users the rarely used apps which can be put into hibernation (updates will be stopped) and the apps which are never used and can be deleted.

Nigam also said that app developers will have an option on whether to show ads in their apps or not. Those who opt in will be able to earn a commission from the generated ad revenue.