Walmart’s PhonePe launches India mobile app store to rival Google

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Feb. 21, 2024– Walmart Inc.-owned fintech PhonePe Pvt. launched a mobile application store for consumers in India, the world’s biggest market for downloads.

The Android-based store is called Indus Appstore, PhonePe said in a statement Wednesday, as it pits the product against Google’s Play Store. The store will have more than 200,000 mobile applications and games in 12 Indian languages.

The move comes as PhonePe capitalizes on growing mobile usage in the world’s second-largest smartphone market.

The group is also trying to forge partnerships with smartphone makers and expects to be live on most major phone brands by the end of the year, Chief Executive Officer Sameer Nigam told reporters in New Delhi.

Developers will not have to pay any application listing fee until April 2025 and can use any third-party payment gateway of their choice, the release said.

PhonePe Group also runs a payments business that competes with Ant Group-backed Paytm and Google’s GPay.