Indian startups explore alliance and alternative app store to fight Google's 'monopoly'

Indian startups explore alliance and alternative app store to fight Google’s ‘monopoly’

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chairman of One97 Communications Ltd., operator of PayTM, center, speaks with colleagues about a newspaper advertisement campaign at the company's office in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India, on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016. India's largest digital payments company says it has signed up more than 20 million users for a total of 177 million since the government two months ago, with no warning, said it was scrapping 500- and 1,000-rupee banknotes, in a stroke excising four-fifths of the nation's paper money. Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Google, which reaches more internet users than any other firm in India and commands 99% of the nation’s smartphone market, has stumbled upon an odd challenge in the world’s second-largest internet market: scores of top local entrepreneurs. More than 150 startups and firms in India are working to form an alliance and toying with the … Continue reading Indian startups explore alliance and alternative app store to fight Google’s ‘monopoly’