PhonePe’s Indus Appstore to Come Pre-Installed on Xiaomi Devices in India

PhonePe’s Indus Appstore and Xiaomi India announced a multi-year partnership on Thursday. With this collaboration, the homegrown Android app marketplace will now come pre-installed in all Xiaomi devices in India. As a result, the Chinese consumer tech brand’s own Android marketplace GetApps will now be replaced with Indus Appstore in all existing as well as future devices. Not only the Xiaomi-branded devices but also Redmi and Poco devices will replace GetApps with PhonePe’s app store. Notably, Indus Appstore was launched in February 2024.

Xiaomi India to Pre-Install Indus Appstore in All Devices

In a press release, PhonePe announced the new partnership between Xiaomi India and Indus Appstore. Calling the move an attempt to “foster a localised digital ecosystem tailored for Indian consumers,” the company confirmed that all Xiaomi devices will now feature the Android marketplace out-of-the-box.

The move is interesting as Xiaomi India will be ditching its in-house app store GetApps to favour distribution of the Indus Appstore. The joint announcement did not mention any financial terms between the two entities.

“By integrating Indus Appstore with our ecosystem, we aim to offer users a seamless and enriched app discovery experience, while also supporting Indian developers in reaching a wider audience,” said Sudhin Mathur, Chief Operating Officer at Xiaomi India, in a statement.

On the other hand, Priya M Narasimhan, Chief Business Officer at Indus Appstore called the partnership the “beginning of the company’s vision” and added, “Our partnership with Xiaomi India marks a significant milestone towards our goal of building a horizontal app store for Indian mobile users and developers.”

A report from last year claimed that the GetApps team will continue to work with the Indus Appstore team under the moniker of “Indus Services App.” It will also provide installation and updates for Xiaomi’s first-party apps.

The Indus Appstore was launched in February 2024 as an Indian alternative to Google’s Play Store. At launch, the marketplace featured around 200,000 apps. The platform supports 12 Indian languages, allowing regional language speakers to easily navigate through it, and discover relevant apps. Additionally, it also supports voice commands in 10 Indian languages. PhonePe said that Indus offers a video-led app discovery system that will show users a sort-of “trailer” about apps.