Vijay Shekhar Sharma, who runs One97 Communication Ltd, the owner of Paytm, tweeted saying,
“And Google Play Store fees: 30% (excluding GST) are costlier than business tax on India’s internet ecosystem. It is the all the margin in a mobile-android age company!”
And Google Play Store fees : 30% (excluding GST) are costlier than business tax on India’s internet ecosystem.
It is the all the margin in a mobile-android age company ! https://t.co/YFmazfnYAJ— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) July 30, 2021
which was a response to Elon Musk’s tweet who called out on Apple’s App Store fees. He said that the fees are “a de facto global tax on the Internet”. This was in accordance with Epic Games, who is the maker of the popular battle royale game Fortnight.
Apple app store fees are a de facto global tax on the Internet. Epic is right.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2021
Epic Games sued Apple in August 2020 for allegedly stemming down the competition and charging up to 30 per cent commission by forcing developers to make use of the in-app payment system.
The lawsuit essentially made people talk about the power that tech giants such as Apple and Google hold in the industry and the monopoly that they establish. In January, in India, Google Play Store as well enabled a policy similar to Apple App Store. Google too, required app developers to use Play Store’s built-in payment system to sell digital services. Since there are more android users in the country than iOS, every app developer including Paytm has to bear 30 per cent commission to Google, along with other expenses.
Paytm is racing to get listed on the market and currently has a user base of 333 million registered users. It operates in a highly competitive field with multiple payment gateways being operational while operating in a volatile market.
