After being backed by Samsung with an investment of $5 million last July, Indus OS — whose Indus App Bazaar is touted as the country’s largest indigenous app store — is currently in talks with brands in China that operate in India.
Chennai:
“China is crucial for us. We have been in talks with companies that operate in India and although the procedure has been challenging, the fact that we were the first app-based company that Samsung invested in, made business easier for us,” said Deshmukh. “It also opened up Samsung’s user base to us which is five times our number,” he added.
Except for the Coronavirus scare, which the company refused to comment on, Indus App Bazaar has other challenges to grapple with, when it comes to tackling the Chinese market. “Language is the major constraint there, but we are trying to build a deep system-level orientation. Also, trust plays an important role among the Chinese and we are trying to build it to encourage investments,” Deshmukh said.
Speaking about the domestic market, the top executive said it continues to be a priority for the firm. “Our target consumers are people who download apps from third parties because they cannot find what they need in Google Play. And they account for 40 per cent of the downloaders. We bridge the gap by offering apps in regional languages,” he added.
Also, unlike Google Play Store, Indus App Bazaar does not require an e-mail id to download apps. “This feature appeals to users who may not even have an e-mail id, but would still want to use an app store,” reasoned Deshmukh, going on to add that they have been focusing on local content.
With 400,000 apps, Indus App Bazaar caters to more than 60 million users in 12 different languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi, Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, besides English.
Speaking to DT Next, Rakesh Deshmukh, Co-founder and CEO, Indus OS, elaborated on how the Korean behemoth helped it get global recognition apart from helping in their efforts to establish roots in the neighbouring country.
“China is crucial for us. We have been in talks with companies that operate in India and although the procedure has been challenging, the fact that we were the first app-based company that Samsung invested in, made business easier for us,” said Deshmukh. “It also opened up Samsung’s user base to us which is five times our number,” he added.
Except for the Coronavirus scare, which the company refused to comment on, Indus App Bazaar has other challenges to grapple with, when it comes to tackling the Chinese market. “Language is the major constraint there, but we are trying to build a deep system-level orientation. Also, trust plays an important role among the Chinese and we are trying to build it to encourage investments,” Deshmukh said.
Speaking about the domestic market, the top executive said it continues to be a priority for the firm. “Our target consumers are people who download apps from third parties because they cannot find what they need in Google Play. And they account for 40 per cent of the downloaders. We bridge the gap by offering apps in regional languages,” he added.
Also, unlike Google Play Store, Indus App Bazaar does not require an e-mail id to download apps. “This feature appeals to users who may not even have an e-mail id, but would still want to use an app store,” reasoned Deshmukh, going on to add that they have been focusing on local content.
With 400,000 apps, Indus App Bazaar caters to more than 60 million users in 12 different languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi, Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, besides English.