[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] There is a growing call for unified efforts in South Korea following Google's decision to postpone the 30% commission fee and mandatory in-app payments in India until 2022.
Han Junho, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Communications Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, cited a report from the US IT media TechCrunch to make this claim.
According to TechCrunch, Poonima Kochika, Head of Global Business Development at Google Play, stated, "We will grant a grace period until 2022 to allow Indian developers to adopt Google's in-app payment system."
TechCrunch analyzed that Google's decision to grant this extension was driven by an unofficial coalition of over 150 startups in India. This represents an exception to Google's global policy initially scheduled to take effect in September 2021.
According to Assemblyman Han, India is the world's second-largest internet market and the largest market for Google Play, yet its revenue is lower than that of South Korea.
Han emphasized, "Domestic app markets such as One Store, along with the local gaming industry, portal operators, and IT startups, must unite to respond to Google's enforcement of in-app payments. It is no longer the time for individual developers to merely watch Google's moves."
He added, "In particular, One Store, as a domestic app market, urgently needs to improve its distribution channels to become a viable alternative to Google, and content developers including game companies must strive to provide content on an equal footing."
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