Blog
Vaibhav Srivastava 
5 October 2020A day after more than 150 technology companies and startups came together to express their concern in the second largest internet market of the world over Google’s 30% charge on its store, Alphabet Inc’s Google postpones in-app commission payment to March 2022 in India. As per the company, it is considering the concerns faced by the app developers community and startups and is readily trying to look out alternatives to make sure that both parties can be successful together.
Purnima Kochikar, Director of Business Development of Games & Applications at Google Play said in a statement, “We are setting up listening sessions with leading Indian startups to understand their concerns more deeply. We will be setting up Policy Workshops to help clear any additional questions about our Play Store policies. And we’re also extending the time for developers in India to integrate with the Play billing system, to ensure they have enough time to implement the UPI for the subscription payment option that will be made available on Google Play — for all apps that currently use an alternative payment system we set a timeline of 31st March 2022. We have always said developers should have a choice in how they distribute their apps, and that stores should compete for consumers’ and developers’ business.”
On the other hand, Sameer Samat, VP of product management at Google said, “During this time, we could have conversations and work together.” The Indian companies had called Google’s move “abrupt” and said 30% commission will come in the way of building sustainable businesses. “(Our) overall approach and tone with this were not to try to be abrupt, nor to try to be burdensome.” He further added that the conversations that have been going on in India about Google Play related to billing and other topics… we are doing a listening tour. You know we have started already, we will continue. Me and my team will be engaging with founders, CEOs and just making sure we sit down and discuss all these things.”
Paytm Mini App Store
After getting banned from Google Play Store, Paytm has announced that on Monday, the company has launched its Android Mini App Store to break the monopoly by Google on the distribution of numerous Android Apps. It is a mobile website which will give the same user experience that users have when they use actual mobile applications. As of now, more than 300 firms, such as Ola, Zoomcar, Cure.fit, Practo, 1mg, Gaana, Booking.com, McDonald’s, Domino’s Pizza and Faasos have already opted for Paytm’s minis app store.
