An Apt Role for the State in these App Store Wars

Context: Protests by Indian apps against Google’s move to tighten Play Store rules (through a charge of a levy of 30% of their revenues) have highlighted the gateway power of app stores.

Issues with the app-market stores:

• App-dispensing Duopoly: App dispensers run by Google and Apple account for almost all the apps on people’s handsets across the world.

• An estimated 99% of India’s approx. Five hundred million smartphones run on Google’s Android.
• They get to set their rules from a position of strength that need not serve any interests other than its own. 
• App marketers cannot delist without losing a lot of business.

• Reduce competition: Even while the companies justify the levy on account of keeping phones virus-free, filter out malware and shield from fraud, the move would stifle innovation and growth in the market.

Way Ahead:

• Domestic app store by the Indian government can mitigate the potential ill effects of an app-dispensing duopoly which would gel with the national mantra of self-reliance. 

• For, E.g. Paytm launched a sub-store under the aegis of its main app.

• Initiate an Anti-Trust Scrutiny: An insistence on strict adherence to the country’s competition law or widened scope of the law for the digital age.