PhonePe Debuts Indus Appstore in India with Free App Listing for Inaugural Year

On February 21st, PhonePe introduced its newest venture, the Indus Appstore, an Android-based mobile application marketplace aimed at addressing a prominent issue in the digital landscape. The lack of regional language content accessibility has been a significant pain point for users across India. To tackle this challenge, PhonePe’s Indus Appstore offers a solution by providing content in English as well as 12 Indian regional languages, catering to diverse linguistic preferences. The launch event, graced by Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Minister of Communications, Electronics, and Information Technology, marked a significant milestone for the Walmart-owned fintech firm, underscoring its commitment to enhancing inclusivity and accessibility within digital ecosystems.

The Indus Appstore sets itself apart with a range of innovative features designed to enhance user experience and streamline app discovery. Leveraging video-led app discovery, mobile-based logins, and AI-driven app recommendations, PhonePe aims to revolutionize the way users engage with mobile applications. Moreover, the platform’s support for regional languages like Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, and more underscores its dedication to catering to diverse linguistic preferences. A simple toggle mechanism empowers users to seamlessly switch between languages, ensuring that app names, descriptions, and trailers are presented in their preferred language, enhancing accessibility and usability.

In addition to linguistic diversity, the Indus Appstore offers users the convenience of conducting searches in their preferred regional language, further enhancing the accessibility of digital content. Founder and CEO of PhonePe, Sameer Nigam, emphasized the platform’s commitment to inclusivity, stating that even transliterations in regional languages would yield relevant search results.

This user-centric approach reflects PhonePe’s dedication to democratizing access to digital services and fostering a more inclusive digital landscape for users across India. Android smartphone users can now access the Indus Appstore, marking a significant milestone in PhonePe’s journey towards empowering users with innovative solutions tailored to their needs.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.