Planet M to launch offline app store, targets non-techie and credit card less audience

An offline app store is the crescendo of mobile app business and popularity. Planet M, owned by Next group of Videocon, is launching a offline app store. Planet M’s target audience is people without access to credit cards and people who are not tech savvy.

The source further revealed, "This will be a first of its kind store and has a huge potential in terms of user education and reaching out to not so tech savvy (who are not comfortable with online purchases) or those who do not have access to credit cards. The stores will also provide help to users in understanding how the applications work." Source

Planet M has more than 200 stores spreading across 32 cities in India. With that reach, Planet M is poised to become the go-to offline store for apps. Now people will be going into the stores and asking for a torch light app, Bollywood app or a mosquito repellent app to be installed on their Android phone.

The move wouldn’t make any sense for tech savvy people and Android geeks. Good for Planet M there are only a few of them.

Would it work?

In a way, India already has million offline app stores. No body counts them as they all are unorganized. A mobile retailer in India doubles up as an app store and installs apps, music and videos on your phone when you buy it. This is especially useful for people who don’t have access to computers or credit cards. The retailer from where I bought my iPhone has loaded some ‘useful’ apps before giving the phone to me, not that I needed. There are services across India which take a meager sum to load songs and videos into USB drives, SD cards and mobile phones.

The offline app stores will definitely work for Planet M. And with the evidence we have so far, people will pay too. What’s stopping from everyone else to get into the organized offline app stores?