Google Play, Android ecosystem generated ₹4 lakh crore in revenue for Indian app publishers in 2024: Google
According to Google, the Indian ecosystem comprises the second largest number of active developers on Google Play across the world, contributing over 10 lakh developer jobs in 2024. Building compelling offerings on Android, this ecosystem has played an important role in shaping the impact and inclusiveness of India's digital economy.
Approximately 72% of surveyed Indian users claimed their first access to the internet was on an Android device; some 85% say their Android phone is one of the main ways they access digital public services, and 69% report first using AI through an app on their Android device. Device makers have also been able to make devices affordable due to the open-source nature of Android, which has assisted in estimated savings of ₹25,200 crore in development and operating costs.
At Google I/O Connect India 2025, an annual developer conference held in Bengaluru, Google announced new initiatives and AI capabilities to support the Indian developer and start-up ecosystem in the country. These included localising data processing of its high-performance thinking model Gemini 2.5 Flash, new Agentic AI tools in Firebase Studio, a new training programme with one of the world's leading gaming engine platforms – Unity, and collaborations with 3 India AI Mission start-ups in building innovative solutions toward the development of India's Make-in-India AI models.
Dr. Manish Gupta, Senior Director for India and APAC at Google DeepMind, who opened the event, said, 'Indian developers are writing the next chapter of India's success story, using AI capabilities to build real-world applications that are reaching millions of businesses and people across the country and the world.'
Preeti Lobana, Country Manager, Google India, who held a fireside chat with Subrata Mitra, Partner, Accel, on building enduring AI-driven companies during the event's opening keynote, said, 'India's developers are shaping how the world will use AI, and we're proud to stand with them. We're giving India the best tools, the most open platforms, and the strongest support to build boldly for the world, fostering a profound 'AI Productivity Leap' across businesses and start-ups.'
Google said it was closely partnering with BharatGen at IIT Bombay to build indigenous Indic language Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Text-to-Speech (TTS) models that would aim to make Gemma (a set of lightweight, generative artificial intelligence open models) more helpful in the Indic context, especially for historically underrepresented languages and governance applications.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hans India
8 minutes ago
- Hans India
DefMin signs Rs 2K-cr deal with BEL
New Delhi: The Ministry of Defence on Friday signed a contract with public-sector defence company Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) for the procurement of Air Defence Fire Control Radars for the Indian Army, worth approximately Rs2,000 crore, under the Buy (Indian-Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured) category. With a minimum 70 per cent indigenous content, these Fire Control Radars will be able to detect all forms of airborne threats, including fighter aircraft, attack helicopters and enemy drones. This would mark a significant milestone in the modernisation of the Air Defence Regiments and enhance the Indian Army's operational readiness, while contributing to the economic growth of the nation, according to a Defence Ministry statement. The contract was signed and exchanged by senior officials of the Ministry of Defence and BEL in the presence of Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh. The procurement marks a pivotal step towards empowering indigenous defence industries by encouraging Indian MSMEs through components manufacturing and raw material supply, the statement said. The government is keen to promote the country's defence industry, and earlier this month Defence Acquisition Council, under the chairmanship of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, gave the go-ahead for 10 proposals to purchase military hardware, including missiles and electronic warfare systems, worth approximately Rs 1.05 lakh crore through indigenous sourcing. India's indigenous defence production has surged to an all-time high of Rs1.46 lakh crore, with exports increasing to a record Rs24,000 crore in 2024-25, according to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.'Our defence production, which was only Rs43,000 crore 10 to 11 years ago, has now crossed a record figure of Rs1,46,000 crore, with the private sector's contribution of over Rs32,000 crore. Our defence exports, which were around Rs600-700 crore 10 years ago, have surpassed a record figure of Rs24,000 crore today,' the minister stated in his address at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) annual summit recently. He described Make-in-India as crucial for security and prosperity, stating that the use of indigenous systems during Operation Sindoor has proved that India has the power to penetrate any armour of the enemy.
The Hindu
8 minutes ago
- The Hindu
What happened to the crypto exchange CoinDCX?
The story so far: On July 19, the crypto exchange CoinDCX updated users that one of its internal accounts had been 'compromised.' The company's executives reassured panicked investors and traders that their assets were safe and that access to their crypto would not be cut off. Despite assurances, many CoinDCX customers moved to withdraw their assets, perceiving the event could turn into something like the WazirX hack last year. What happened to CoinDCX? CoinDCX is a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) registered Indian cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2018 by Neeraj Khandelwal and Sumit Gupta, now counting over 1.6 crore registered users. On July 19, the exchange shared that one of its 'internal operational accounts, used solely for liquidity provisioning on a partner exchange, was compromised due to a sophisticated server breach.' Mr. Khandelwal clarified this involved unauthorised access to an operational hot (virtually connected) wallet on a partner exchange. CoinDCX reported financial exposure of about $44 million but stressed that the incident was contained by isolating the affected account, which was segregated from the company's customer wallets. The exchange further added that the exposure was limited to that amount alone and that it would be fully absorbed by CoinDCX through its own reserves. 'The incident has been formally reported to CERT-In, and we are actively working with leading blockchain forensics firms and ecosystem partners to trace the attacker and recover assets,' said CoinDCX in its Incident Report, and provided information about the cross-chain movement of the stolen assets. The company also announced a recovery bounty programme. How were CoinDCX users impacted by the hack? CoinDCX repeatedly stressed that customers' funds were secure and unaffected by the hack, as they were placed in segregated, cold wallets that are challenging for attackers to breach. The company also stated that trading, rupee deposits, and rupee withdrawals remained fully functional throughout the period. However, some customers complained that their withdrawal requests took time to be processed, sparking fears that their funds had been frozen. CoinDCX's founding partner Mridul Gupta said that 'operational challenges caused by high withdrawal volumes during non-banking hours' had led to some delays but denied allegations of a freeze. The company later confirmed that all withdrawal requests had been successfully processed. While crypto withdrawals are not possible for everyone using CoinDCX, this is a pre-existing situation that is part of the company's risk policy and was not caused by the hack itself. Furthermore, the exchange faced accusations of a 17-hour-long delay when it came to updating customers about the hack. CoinDCX defended its actions and said it needed to have all the information before issuing a statement to customers but said investigating agencies were immediately informed and onboarded. 'Our first priority is always to act, not just to speak. Before making a public statement, we had to ensure the threat was fully contained, our platform was secure, and all customer funds were safe. Communicating with incomplete or unverified information would have been irresponsible and could have caused unnecessary panic,' said co-founder Sumit Gupta. Other CoinDCX users raised complaints about temporary price drops for certain assets, as well as some tokens being under maintenance, which the company also addressed. How are the CoinDCX and WazirX hacks different? Just a little over a year ago, on July 18, 2024, WazirX was targeted by North Korean cyber-thieves. That day, a multi-signature wallet that the WazirX exchange was managing with the company Liminal was exploited, leading to the loss of assets worth over $230 million. This was far greater than the losses reported by CoinDCX; WazirX customers' assets were directly affected by this breach. After much delay and confusion, WazirX blocked users' access to their crypto for an indefinite period of time and acknowledged significant losses. By contrast, CoinDCX has stressed that it is business as usual for the exchange, noting on X that its annual revenue exceeds ₹1,100 crores. WazirX customers demanded that the company use its own profits or funds to cover losses, but the company said this was not possible, citing an ownership dispute with the international crypto exchange Binance. WazirX further decided to carry out its legal restructuring exercise in Singapore. WazirX users have not been able to access their locked up crypto for over a year and are set to vote for a second time on the amended Scheme of Arrangement. This comes after the first proposed restructuring plan was rejected by the Singapore High Court. Both WazirX and CoinDCX were hit with criticism for delays in informing their customers about their respective hacks. What is the lesson for crypto investors in India? Investors in India should remember that crypto trading is a largely unregulated activity in the country; even users of centralised, FIU-registered exchanges can expect little to no support from the Indian authorities in case of a crisis such as a security breach. Satnam Narang, Senior Staff Research Engineer at Tenable, explained that if users want full control of their coins, they should consider self-custody options like an offline, hardware cold wallet they directly control. Even here, due diligence is required in order to buy only trusted hardware wallets from legitimate sellers, according to him. 'As more and more exchanges have been set up across the world, we have seen reports of attacks targeting smart contract flaws or other ways to steal funds from these exchanges including but not limited to social engineering, theft of credentials or private keys or targeting a third-party company that works with the targeted organization,' said Mr. Narang, noting that the CoinDCX hack was one of the largest cryptocurrency breaches since the attack against WazirX last year. He highlighted that when crypto prices go up, there is also a rise in attacks against both exchanges and customers. Mr. Narang said that traders storing coins on crypto exchanges should use multi-factor authentication and strong passwords, or store their coins securely offline, if possible. 'There is an old adage in the cryptocurrency space that says: 'not your keys, not your crypto/coins'. As long as users store their cryptocurrency on an exchange, those coins don't necessarily belong to them because the exchange could ban their account or an exchange hack could lead to the loss of coins,' explained Mr. Narang.
Mint
8 minutes ago
- Mint
The Bitcoin is full of contradictions. It could still climb some more.
Bitcoin is in the midst of another historic rally. Can it continue? Your guess is as good as anyone's. The bearish arguments, so far proved wrong by the market, haven't changed. The bullish arguments remain as mercurial—and contradictory—as ever. The original cryptocurrency is having another great year, with its price up more than 27%. On Friday, Bitcoin traded at $119,023, up 0.5% for the day, and only about 3% below its July 14 all-time high of $123,166. The price peg's Bitcoin's total market cap at $2.3 trillion. If Bitcoin were a stock, that would rank it sixth in the S&P 500, behind Google parent Alphabet and in front of Meta, according to FactSet data. Given all the excitement, Wall Street analysts are scrambling to put a target price on the surging asset. On Thursday, Citigroup Global Markets offered investors a framework for understanding Bitcoin's price, based on criteria like demand and macro-economic factors. But the result wasn't going to change many minds: Citi offered a bull case of $199,000, representing a gain of about 70% from today's price and a bear case of $64,000, suggesting a 50% decline. It's hard to blame Citibank's analysts for trying to cover their bases. So many of the arguments in favor of Bitcoin tend to fall back on themselves—and yet the price marches ever upwards. Take Bitcoin's latest price driver: Action in Washington. Last week President Trump signed the Genius Act, a bill designed to regulate stable coins, a form of cryptocurrency backed by real assets. Lawmakers may soon advance the Clarity Act, which is designed to resolve the question of whether regulators should treat cryptocurrencies as commodities or securities. There is even talk of crypto in 401(k)s. It's true those developments could all further mainstream adoption. Yet for anyone who has followed the crypto industry's rhetoric over the past decade, it's a little hard not to blanch at all the cheering over victories in Washington. The original aim of Bitcoin—and its cri de coeur—was to be a store of value whose price was immune to government meddling. Bitcoin's scarcity, amid the growing demand for digital assets, is another key explanation for the rally. But this argument is thorny too. Bitcoin boosters are fond of repeating that there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins, while regular 'halvings" make Bitcoin less and less lucrative to mine. Meanwhile, demand for Bitcoin has skyrocketed in the past year thanks to the advent of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which make it far easier for mainstream investors to bet on the cryptocurrency. The largest of these, the iShares Bitcoin Trust, has grabbed nearly $38 billion in investor dollars in the past 12 months and nearly $6 billion in the last month alone. But can this potent mix of scarcity and demand continue? While the number of Bitcoins is fixed, there is no limit on the number of copy-cat coins. CoinMarketCap tracks more than 18 million coins, according to its website, with a total market value of $1.5 trillion. So far the SEC has cleared spot ETFs for only the two most valuable cryptos: Bitcoin and Ethereum. But boosters of offerings such as XRP, Litecoin and Solana are clamoring for their own spot ETFs. Washington's new crypto-friendly attitude suggests they will soon get them. Of course, a flood of new crypto ETFs won't necessarily dampen investors' appetite for Bitcoin. Bitcoin's status and mystique as the original crypto has so far ensured it remains more valuable than its many imitators. But the potential flood does suggest that hype, more than limited supply, is what supports Bitcoin's price. Arguments for why investors should own Bitcoin (other than price speculation) are also shaky. Unlike stocks and bonds, Bitcoin doesn't throw off any cash flows. No matter, supporters have long argued. Bitcoin still has a role in your portfolio as a store of value, a form of 'digital gold." It's a view that has led some large investing firms (including Bitcoin ETF sponsors BlackRock and Fidelity) to advocate investors should consider devoting at least a small share of their overall portfolio, say 1% to 2%, to Bitcoin, to boost diversification. The Bitcoin-as-diversifier notion mirrors the longstanding arguments made in favor of owning actual gold—but there are problems with this thesis too. It's true that returns for Bitcoin and gold have resembled one another over the past year. They are both in the midst of big rallies. But, then so are plenty of risk-on assets, notably U.S. growth stocks, led by big U.S. technology names. While gold isn't a perfect hedge against stock-market declines, its reputation as a haven during times of macroeconomic turmoil has been established by academic studies looking at decades of returns. Bitcoin, invented in 2008, boasts no such extensive record. In fact, one recent study (again by BlackRock) found that, although Bitcoin's volatility had recently lessened, the coin remained about four times more volatile than gold. When the next bear market comes it seems likely investors will flee speculative assets like Bitcoin and tech stocks, not run to them for shelter. Where will Bitcoin go next? Prices may continue to march higher, just because they always have. But the arguments in favor of still-bigger gains still don't give much confidence—making sense only if you close one eye and wish away all the contradictions. Write to Ian Salisbury at
