India plans to start up its own mobile app store

The central government will consider requests from technology entrepreneurs to launch India’s own app store.

In a bid to make India Aatmanirbhar (Self-reliant), the Modi government is reportedly planning to launch its own app store as an alternative to Google and Apple’s app store.

 Highlights:

• India plans to start up its own mobile app store.

India own app store as an alternative to

Google, Apple Store.

According to Government sources, C-DAC will build India’s alternative to Google’s Play store.

Android has a 97% market share in India, so India should Have its own App store. The app store is being built under the Aatmanirbhar App Scheme.

Indian start-ups and companies are calling for a local application store that does not charge a high service fee. This comes at a time when Fortnite developer Epic is enraged in a battle with Apple over its 30 percent cut on in-app purchases.

Play Store tax sparks call for an Indian alternative.

Paytm, one of India’s leading payments firms, protested against the U.S. tech giant’s decision to remove its app for a few hours last month citing violations of gambling policies.

Nonetheless, several Indian start-up founders are calling for a local app store that doesn’t charge a high service fee.

“It’s absolutely necessary to have a local app store,” said Vishal Gondal, co-founder of Bengaluru-based gaming firm nCore Games.

“If we have to give 30% fees to Google and also pay for customer acquisition, how will our budding businesses survive?”

India already runs a mobile app store that lists over 1200 mainly government-backed applications and the government could also consider expanding that instead of starting from scratch, the official added.