The US tech giant indicated its intentions while answering a question from developers about their demand. Google took pre-submitted questions from developers.
Since last month, when Google announced its intentions of enforcing a 30% cut on in-app purchases for Play-distributed apps and other policies, Indian startup founders and tech entrepreneurs have been criticising the company’s move. Many, including most notably Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, have slammed the 30% charge as an example of Google abusing its dominance. In a conference for mini-app developers, Sharma targeted Google and called the tech giant a “toll collector” as he talked about the Paytm Mini App Store.
After facing criticism from the Indian startup ecosystem over its Play Store policies, Google, earlier this month, deferred the implementation of the policies for Indian app developers by six months to April 2022.
Earlier, in a blog post, Google had said that it was “deeply committed to the success of the Indian ecosystem — we do not succeed unless our partners succeed.”
In September, nearly 40 entrepreneurs had presented their views to the government through a virtual meeting chaired by the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) secretary Ajay Sawhney. Meanwhile, it was reported that the Indian government is developing an Indian App Store to challenge the Google-Apple duopoly. Although, there has been no confirmation from the government on that front.