Indus OS

Indus OS
Private
Key people
  • Rakesh Deshmukh (CEO)
  • Akash Dongre (CPO)
  • Sudhir Bangarambandi (CTO)
Products Indus OS, App Bazaar
Website www.indusos.com

Indus OS (formerly known as Firstouch) is a multi-lingual mobile operating system based on Android.[1] In India, the operating system has gained popularity ranking above iOS & Windows and only behind Android.[2] Indus OS is one of the first regional Operating System made especially for the regional language user.[3] The operating system also has its own app market place called 'App Bazaar'.[4]

The operating system is currently available in 12 Indian languages and has an active user base of over 4 Million. Indus OS has partnered with the phone brands Micromax, Karbonn Mobiles, Celkon, Swipe and Elite.[5]

History

Indus OS was founded in 2015 by Rakesh Deshmukh, Akash Dongre and Sudheer B; all three are alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.[6] Hari Padmanabhan, an IIT Kanpur alumni, industry veteran and serial entrepreneur is a seed investor in the company .

Funding

In January 2016, Indus OS received $5 Million in Series A funding which was led by Omidyar Network.[7] The company is also funded among others by angel investors Mayank Singhal from Temasek Holdings; Pranay Chulet, founder of Quikr; Amit Gupta & Naveen Tewari, co-founders of InMobi; Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal, co-founders of Snapdeal [8]

Product features

The operating system currently features in English and 12 other regional languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. The company's patented keyboard allows word prediction, matra prediction, auto correction and swipe-to-translate & transliterate features to its users.[6] The operating system's regional app marketplace, App Bazaar, is the fastest growing one in the world [9] App Bazaar has integrated carrier billing facility and hence it allows users to download apps in their regional languages without requiring them to have an email id or paying by credit cards. Over 90% of Indus OS users have activated App Bazaar on their smartphones and over 75% use it on a monthly basis.[10]

Awards and recognition

Indus OS won the Economic Times Telecom Award 2016 in the Innovation in Developing OEM Product category.[11] The company has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Government of India's DeitY (Department of Electronics and Information Technology) to develop text to speech technology in regional languages which will help deliver internet facility to users in their preferred regional language [12]

On May 7, 2016, Indus OS was declared the 2nd most popular OS in India according to a research study conducted by Counterpoint Research. As of May 2016, the OS was the second most popular in India, with a 5.6% market share.[13] This is a greater market share than Microsoft and Apple.[13] Android remains the most popular, with 83.8%.[13]

Indus OS was recently awarded the prestigious TiE50 (Silicon Valley) Top Start-Up Award for the year 2016 and ET Telecom Award 2016 for 'Innovation and Development OEM Product'.

Indus OS recently won the 'Digital Startup of the Year Award' at the Drivers of Digital Awards 2016. [14]

References

  1. ↑ Rao, Rajiv (2016-05-18). "Indus' Android-based OS races to become second most popular in India". ZDNet. Retrieved 2016-06-04.
  2. ↑ http://finance.yahoo.com/news/indus-os-indias-first-home-142600699.html
  3. ↑ Culpan, Tim (2016-07-28). "India Achieved in Two Years What China Didn't in a Decade". Bloomberg Gadfly. Retrieved 2016-08-27.
  4. ↑ Shalini Pillai, "Firstouch rebrands to Indus OS, raises $5 million Series A led by Omidyar Network", "The Times of India", Jan 19, 2016
  5. ↑ http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/indus-os-partners-with-karbonn-mobiles-1471083
  6. 1 2 Gulveen Aulakh, "Firstouch rebrands to Indus OS, raises $5 million Series A led by Omidyar Network", "The Economic Times", Jan 19, 2016
  7. ↑ Jon Russell, "Indus OS Raises $5M To Make Android Work For First-Time Smartphone Users In India", "Tech Crunch", Jan 18, 2016
  8. ↑ https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/indus-os#/entity
  9. ↑ Newskart Team, "Indus A Mobile Operating System Raises USD 5 Million Series A Funding Led By Omidyar Network", "Newskart.com", Jan 19, 2016
  10. ↑ BI India Bureau, "Leaving behind Apple and Microsoft, Mumbai-based Indus OS takes second spot in smartphone operating system market", "BusinessInsider.in", May 7, 2016
  11. ↑ http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ettelecomawards
  12. ↑ Alnoor Peermohamed, "Regional language-focused Indus OS wants to be on 100 mn smartphones by 2018", "Business Standard", Apr 6, 2016
  13. 1 2 3 Gulveen Aulakh, "Indus pips Apple, Microsoft to take second spot in smartphone operating system market", "Economic Times", May 7, 2016
  14. ↑ http://theceo.in/2016/10/inkspell-acknowledges-digital-front-runners-india-drivers-digital-awards/
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