KEY POINTS
- Google Play will collect a 30% commission on in-app purchases from 2021
- Indian startup founders called these charges “unfeasible”
- Google’s Android holds a 95.8% market share in India
More than 150 top Indian startups and businesses, some of them big names, have banded together to challenge Google’s monopoly over the Android app ecosystem in India and build an app store that the country can call its own, TechCrunch reported.
The move by Indian businesses to to build a national altenative to Google Play was prompted by Google’s recent annoucement to force app developers on its store to use its payments system, which takes a 30% cut on transactions including in-app purchases. Reports said founders of leading startups like Paytm, a payments app simiar to Google Pay and is India’s most valuable startup; MakeMyTrip and PolicyBazaar discussed Google’s policy and the concerns on dependence on Google on a call.
It is not yet clear how far the effort has progressed.
TechCrunch said without naming any sources that dozens of executives “from nearly every top startup and firm” in India attended the call Tuesday and agreed that a Google’s 30% cut was “simply unfeasible” and will hurt Indian businesses. It said the meeting discussed Google’s “monopolistic” hold on India, which has one of the world’s largest startup ecosystems, and what the executives alleged were unfair and inconsistent enforcement of Play Store guidelines in the country by Google.
Last month Google reiterated Play Store’s gambling policy and even pulled Paytm’s app from the store for some time, citing repeated violations of the policy. Google leads the mobile payments market in India, and is a direct competitor to Paytm in