Affle to Acquire Strategic Stake in Indus OS, India’s Largest Independent Indigenous Apps Store

Affle (India) Limited through its subsidiaries (“Affle”), today announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire 8.0% ownership in OSLabs Pte. Ltd., Singapore  (“Indus OS”). Indus OS operates India’s largest independent indigenous apps store, with key investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation.

A homegrown app and content discovery platform - Indus OS’ key offering - “Indus App Bazaar” has over 400,000 apps accessible in English and 12 Indian languages including Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Odia, Punjabi, Malayalam, Bengali, Assamese and Kannada. It is a default apps store for all Samsung devices in India powering the Samsung’s Galaxy store, and partners with many of the Indian OEMs as well. Indus OS platform is designed to help users discover digital content and services in the language of their choice. Utilizing its proprietary AI-driven app recommendation engine, Indus OS optimizes the user experience, delivering higher engagements and bringing app developers, smartphone brands and users on a single India centric platform.

Commenting on this development, Anuj Khanna Sohum, the Chairman, MD and CEO at Affle said “We are excited to announce our strategic investment in Indus OS. This investment reaffirms our commitment to Affle2.0 growth strategy and building a sustainable market leadership. We derive significant synergies with the Indus OS App Bazaar which through its multi-lingual capabilities, deeply enhances our vernacular scale and the verticalization strategy. It strengthens Affle’s position as the enabling platform for the indigenous apps ecosystem in India, ensuring a digitally inclusive growth for our customers.”

Talking about it, Rakesh Deshmukh, the Co-founder, Director and CEO of Indus OS commented “We are thrilled to commence on this exciting journey together with Affle. Indus OS platform with its indigenous app store capabilities, thousands of apps and powered by a robust app recommendation engine is deployed by Samsung and many Indian OEMs. This deal would strategically strengthen our market position and create a leading one-of-a-kind engagement model for the Indian users. I would like to thank our team, users and partners for their continued support, and looking forward to our long-term collaboration together with Affle.”

About Affle

Affle is a global technology company with a proprietary consumer intelligence platform that delivers consumer engagements, acquisitions and transactions through relevant Mobile Advertising. The platform aims to enhance returns on marketing investment through contextual mobile ads and also by reducing digital ad fraud. While Affle's Consumer platform is used by online & offline companies for measurable mobile advertising, its Enterprise platform helps offline companies to go online through platform-based app development, enablement of O2O commerce and through its customer data platform.

Affle (India) Limited successfully completed its IPO in India and now trades on the stock exchanges (BSE: 542752 & NSE: AFFLE). Affle Holdings is the Singapore based promoter for Affle (India) Limited, and its investors include Microsoft, D2C (An NTT DoCoMo, Dentsu & NTT Advertising JV), Itochu, Bennett Coleman & Company (BCCL) amongst others.

For more information visit www.affle.com

For further queries, you may contact - pr@affle.com

About Indus OS

Established in 2015, Indus OS is a “Made-In-India” technology brand, building India’s only content and commerce platform for users to discover and consume digital content and services in the language of their choice. Indus OS operates its own app Store - Indus App Bazaar with over 400,000 applications, providing users a seamless experience in English and 12 Indian languages including Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Malayalam, and Bengali, amongst others. It is built on a strong personalized recommendation engine delivering users the option to download apps that best serve their needs. Utilizing its proprietary AI-driven app recommendation engine, Indus OS optimizes the user experience, delivering higher engagements and bringing app developers, smartphone brands and users on a single India centric platform.

Ola, Indus OS Join Hands To Power Mobility Needs Of Citizens

Indus OS, the homegrown smartphone operating system, and India’s second largest widely used OS has partnered with Ola.

The partnership aims to power the mobility needs of citizens in a revolutionary contextual and seamless interface that is made to reduce battery and data consumption while making the experience intuitive. Ola’s services will be integrated at the OS level, enabling new users to discover its benefits and existing users to increase engagement.

With this partnership, Ola claims to become the first mobility provider for all Indus OS users. This integration will also make the Ola experience available in English and 12 regional languages, enabling access to hassle-free commute for millions of Indians across India.

Ola has integrated with Indus OS through the inbuilt intuitive messaging app of the OS, which makes access to Ola not only seamless but also invokes suggestions based on the context of the message. This is the default SMS application on the OS with IP capability. Used by 8 million Indians on smartphones such as Micromax, Intex Technologies, Karbonn Mobiles, Celkon among others, Indus OS is the leading operating system favored by most regional language smartphone users across India, making it an ideal partner for Ola, and enabling reach to millions of Indians.

Currently available in English and 12 regional languages (Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Oriya, Assamese, Punjabi, Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi), this partnership will significantly expand the user base who can avail of prompt mobility solutions.

Commenting on the development, Nitin Gupta, VP, Engineering at Ola said, “Mobility is for everyone, irrespective of language and location. This partnership with Indus OS is a big step in catering to such use cases and ensuring that access to reliable mobility solutions reaches everyone who needs it in the most contextual and intuitive experience. In this endeavor, we are constantly evaluating opportunities and forging strong partnerships that will help us to reach to more Indians and address their mobility requirements. Thus, simple solutions backed by robust technology, and delivered to the hands of the customers to cater to their real-time needs will continue to be our focus.”

Nitin also added, “By associating with like-minded companies such as Indus OS that understand the market like we do, we are confident that customers will stand to benefit the most.”

How does this work?

Indus OS users need to simply open their OS’ in-built messaging app and click on Ola among the suggested Brand Accounts to book a cab

• Ola as a recommendation will also, pop up if any message has the context of mobility. For instance; a doctor’s appointment, confirmation messages of movie tickets, etc.


• Options of category and the cost for the ride will appear on the messaging window along with, suggested prompts for response


• The messaging app will identify your location and open maps to enter the drop location


• Basis the choice you make, it will ask for confirmation, and send you the ride information – all in the same window


• Check out the GIF to know more!

“Ola being the largest mobility platform in the country, with maximum availability across categories, this partnership will be a true value for our users. We understand the real needs of the Indian masses and believe in ground-up innovation to solve for those needs. Ola’s integration within Indus OS will allow users to access Ola’s services with minimal data and battery consumption and in the language of their choice. While we cater to the Indian users through simple and innovative technology, mutually beneficial tie-ups like these make our service offering more meaningful,” said Rakesh Deshmukh, Founder & CEO, Indus OS.

Since inception, Ola has been cognizant of the unique needs and demands of the country. Innovations such as Offline Booking, the Progressive Web App, Ola Share, and many others have made a huge impact and have successfully delivered Ola’s services. Understanding the diversity in language preferences of driver partners, Ola’s partner app is available in 8 Indian languages, apart from English, ensuring that they have access in a language of their choice and comfort. The association with Indus OS will now help Ola cater to consumer interest as well by providing instant access to an underserved market in the most contextual and intuitive way possible.