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Weekly News For You To Stay Updated With The App Industry
A large part of this week’s News Wr(app) is dedicated to Match Group’s lawsuit against Google. Any story against anti-competitive policies will always have a place in our stories.
And of course, we have multiple stories from other corners of the tech world too. Like how podcasts are doing really over the past two years.
So, sit back and check out all our stores in our latest edition of the Weekly News Wr(app):
1. Owners of Tinder tired of Google’s app store monopoly
Match Group, the owners of big dating apps like Tinder, Match, and OkCupid have filed a lawsuit against Google’s Play Store policies.
If you’ve been following tech news or even our Weekly News Wr(app)s, you can guess what this lawsuit is about. It’s about Google’s high commission fees that they charge for each digital transaction. These fees can go up to 30% depending on the revenue you make (it’s 30% for firms that make $1 million annually). Big companies like Match Group are expected to pay a 30% commission for every in-app purchase.
Match Group’s lawsuit says that Google collects its commissions by forcing each developer to use only Google’s Billing System, while other payment options are banned.
The lawsuit states: “Google lured app developers to its platform with assurances that we (Match Group) could offer users a choice over how to pay for the services they want. But once it (Google) monopolized the market for Android app distribution with Google Play by riding the coattails of the most popular app developers, Google sought to ban alternative in-app payment processing services so it could take a cut of nearly every in-app transaction on Android”.
Google on the other hand is brushing off these claims and has labeled this lawsuit as a “self-interested campaign”. They believe that Match Group can distribute its apps in alternative ways other than the Play Store.
“Even if they don’t want to comply with Google Play’s policies, Android’s openness still provides them multiple ways of distributing their apps to Android users, including through other Android app stores, directly to users via their website or as consumption-only apps,” is the response Google gave.
Google is leaning back on Android’s openness to rebuff Match Group’s claims but we (Indus OS) being an alternative app distribution platform know that Google’s claims are farcical.
Android is no longer open as it used to be nor is installing a third-party app store on Android devices accessible for the average user.
Therefore Google cannot simply dismiss the lawsuit saying that alternative options are available for a developer to distribute their apps and maximize revenue. This definitely needs to go to court for a just ending. We can only wait and see.
Source: https://tcrn.ch/38CCoyG
2. The EU’s groundbreaking Digital Markets Act will be enforced in 2023
The Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is the EU’s solution to regulating Big Tech firms, will come into force by around March of next year.
The DMA is a new regulation that will govern how tech companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, etc. will interact with consumers. It was planned to be implemented in October 2022. However, some “legal texts on procedures or notification forms” are still being drafted which is the reason for the new dates.
But Margrethe Vestager, VP of the European Commission, reassures everyone that their teams are “currently busy with these preparations” and are “aiming to come forward with these new structures very soon”.
The DMA aims to give greater choice to the users and is expecting firms to be transparent with their inner workings like explaining algorithms.
Failure to comply will mean fines of around 6% of their annual turnover.
Source: https://bit.ly/3Ll9a4M
3. Podcast ad revenue expected to increase by 47% in 2023
In 2021, $14.5 billion was spent on podcast ads in the US. This number is lower than 2020, yet the industry witnessed a 72% annual growth in 2021 (amounting to $1.45 billion). Given such promising numbers, IAB, the company behind the research predicts ad revenue to hit $2.13 billion in 2023, an increase of 47%, and will increase further in 2024.
According to Chris Bruderle, IAB's VP of research and insights, "Everything right now is aligned to drive growth. There's more engaging and diverse podcast content than ever, and that is translating into larger, more attractive audiences. But more than anything, podcasting has proven that it can deliver beyond direct-to-consumer advertising to support brand-building and drive business outcomes."
Even with a lack of commute during the pandemic, people were still listening to podcasts and it’s only grown post-Covid.
Source: https://bit.ly/3PqVb0z
4. Quick delivery apps doing well in India. Zepto witnessed a 946% growth
A study by Bobble AI showed that the post-pandemic market seems like a conducive environment for the growth of quick delivery apps. Blinkit, Big Basket, Dunzo, and Zepto all saw an increase in active monthly users between December 2021 and March 2022.
Zepto especially had the biggest growth at 946% followed by Dunzo and Big Basket at 94% and 58% respectively.
According to Tabrez Alam, Chief Data & Strategy Officer of Bobble AI, the “10-15 minute delivery market is anticipated to reach $5.5 billion by 2025.” Alam was pulling up data from a research firm called RedSeer, which also revealed that “quick commerce adoption saw unprecedented uptake in the post-COVID period. The burgeoning online population and their increasing preference for online shopping are facilitating the market to grow rapidly.”
The grocery market in India has bright prospects, according to Sanford C. Bernstein, which is estimated to be valued at $25 billion by 2025.
Source: https://bit.ly/3sEQjvg
5. Koo planning to overtake Twitter in India by next year
India’s microblogging platform Koo is making plans to overtake Twitter in terms of user count. Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-founder and CEO of Koo, predicts that the app will have 100 million users by the end of 2022.
They’re also planning to inject fresh funds from investors and build on its international markets. Currently, Koo is available in 10 Indian languages. The app is mainly catering to the non-English speaking users in India, which is why they’re confident of overtaking Twitter.
Radhakrishna refers to Twitter as an “English-world phenomenon” that is going to impact only a few users in India. Koo however has an 80% share of non-English users with Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, and Bengali users making a bulk of that number.
We agree that unless apps heavily localize their content, they cannot capture such a linguistically diverse country like India.
Source: https://bit.ly/3MnXVdj
6. Big Tech firms looking to India to grow their user base
Companies like Amazon, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft are on the lookout for the next market that can boost their user growth. With American markets at a saturation point, these firms are turning their eyes to emerging regions like South America and Southeast Asia.
But the problem is a lack of internet connectivity in these regions.
Looking at India, we’ve got the second-largest mobile market in the world but a large part of our country is still living offline. That is, more than 60% of our 1.5 billion people don’t use the internet regularly.
This is a source of frustration for many of the Big Tech firms since it means they’re not able to grow their revenue.
Governments around the world, and even our own, need to step up the infrastructure building process to improve mobile and internet connectivity in their respective countries. This is not just for the tech companies but it benefits even the people since almost everything is being digitized.
Source: https://bit.ly/3a7smWT
7. IPL helping Disney+ Hotstar reach subscriber milestones
Hostar is riding the IPL wave. The cricketing craze has led to an increase in the subscriber count by 4.2 million and totaling 50.1 million quarterly subscribers.
The global paid subscriber count of Disney+ for the last quarter stood at 138 million.
According to Walt Disney’s Senior EVP and CFO Christine McCarthy, “A little over half of those net adds were from Disney+ Hotstar, which benefited from the start of the new IPL season toward the end of the second quarter.”
Disney+ Hotstar is looking forward to investing more in the region, with around 100 projects in the pipeline for India.
Source: https://bit.ly/3NiNdVl
