Indian tech firms join to fight Google’s app store monopoly: report
01 Oct 2020
Indian start-ups and tech firms are reported to be forming an alliance to fight Google’s app store monopoly by launching a parallel app store that would be more inclusive, according to a report in technology magazine TechCrunch.
Google, the most widely used internet platform, also has 99 per cent of the nation’s smart phone market.
According to the report, more than 150 start-ups and other tech firms in India, including Paytm co-founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Deep Kalra of travel ticketing firm MakeMyTrip; and executives from PolicyBazaar, RazorPay and ShareChat are among the alliance partners planning to launch an app store to limit their reliance on Google.
The move comes as Google uses the reach of the Android platform to tighten its stranglehold on Indian technology firms and start-ups with its widely alleged monopolistic practices. Google has demanded that starting next year developers with an app on Google Play Store must give the company a cut of as much as 30 per cent of several app-related payments.
Top tech firms have already dumped Google’s demands calling it unfeasible and untenable.
There is a growing list of aggrieved firms and entrepreneurs who complain about unfair and inconsistent enforcement of Play Store’s guidelines in the country. With the start-up ecosystem in India growing, Google is playing Big Daddy by its diktats to smaller tech firms, they say.
Another small group of firms that include Epic Games, Spotify, Basecamp, Match Group and ProtonMail, have already formed a coalition to pressure Apple and Google to make changes to their marketplace rules, says the report.
The conversations in India, which began in recent weeks, escalated on Tuesday after Google said that starting next year developers with an app on Google Play Store must give the company a cut of as much as 30% of several app-related payments.
Several major startups in the country have expressed disappointment over the unhelpful nature of industry bodies, which they say have failed in nurturing the ecosystem.
They also cite instances like Google decision to temporarily pull Paytm’s marquee app from the Play Store, which has caused the tech company immense loss both in business facilitation and reputation.
“This is the problem of India’s app ecosystem. So many founders have reached out to us… if we believe this country can build digital business, we must know that it is at somebody else’s hand to bless that business and not this country’s rules and regulations,” Paytm’s Sharma said in a TV interview criticising Google’s Play Store policies.
The report also cited Google sending notices to several firms in India, including Hotstar, and warnings to food delivery startups Swiggy and Zomato.
Some of the participating members are also hopeful that the government, which has urged the citizens in India to become self-reliant to revive the declining economy, would help their movement. As of Thursday afternoon (local time), they had yet to reach out to the government.
Google, which has backed a handful of startups in India and is a member of several Indian industry bodies, also leads the mobile payments market in India.
Besides, it has invested $4.5 billion this year in Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms to extend its reach to telecom and retail.
Ambani’s Jio Platforms has attracted more than $20 billion in investment from Google, Facebook and 11 other high-profile investors this year.