The Indian government’s own mobile app store, called the ‘Mobile Seva Appstore’, hosts more than 965 applications from several different domains and categories. According to a PTI report, the parliament on Thursday was informed about the ‘boost’ that is going to be provided to the government’s indigenous mobile app store. IT Minister Ravishankar Prasad confirmed about the same in reply to Rajya Sabha. Prasad said that the response to the idea and the indigenous app store is great.
India the Biggest Consumer of Mobile Applications Globally
Prasad said India is the biggest consumer of mobile applications globally. He was asked what would the government do if Apple or Google remove their application stores from India. He noted that according to a report from India App Market Statistics 2021, 5% of the applications on the Google Play store are contributed from the Indians. Now, the Indian government is looking to be less dependent on the other nation’s app stores and developers for accessing digital solutions. Rather, the government is encouraging developers to host indigenous applications on the government-owned mobile app store. Prasad said that the government-owned app store must host all the apps during the initial stages without any costs. Now the centre is asking private applications to become a part of its indigenous app store as well. This move will ensure that Indians won’t have to depend on the likes of Google and Apple for accessing applications. Further, more and more developers will get a chance to create new applications and showcase their talent on the platform. At present, there are more than 965 live applications on the ‘Mobile Seva Appstore’. With the government’s recent announcement, it is expected that more applications might become part of the platform soon. Further, private applications that already exist on other app stores might decide to become a part of the government-owned mobile application store.
