ON MARCH 1, 2024, Google pulled 10 popular Indian mobile apps— Bharat Matrimony, Jeevansathi, Naukri.com, 99acres, Shaadi. com, Truly Madly, QuackQuack, Stage, Altt, and Kuku FM—due to payment policy violations from its Play Store, only to reinstate them. Since then, there has been much discussion on the need for an Indian app store to break up the Google-Apple duopoly.
The tech giants dominate the app world—Google’s Android enjoys 94.94% market share in India, and Apple’s iOS has a 4.22% share.
“Indian companies will comply—for now. But what India needs is an App Store/Play Store that is a part of the Digital Public Infrastructure—like UPI and ONDC. The response needs to be strategic,” wrote Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder and Executive Vice Chairman of Info Edge—which runs Jeevansathi, Naukri.com, 99acres, among others—on microblogging site X, tagging Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, soon after the incident. And he wasn’t the only one from India Inc. advocating for an Indian app store.
This isn’t the first time Google removed an app from India from its Play Store. In 2020, it had pulled fintech app Paytm for a few hours, citing violations of policies. After a few months, Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma launched a mini app store within the Paytm app to reduce its reliance on Google. Sharma has been vocal about developing an Indian app store since.
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