Indus OS partners with FreeCharge to introduce OS-integrated innovation

Indus OS and FreeCharge have unveiled Recharge 2.0, a game-changing product integrated within the smartphone dialer interface today. Recharge 2.0 on the Indus Dialer will, for the first time ever, empower and allow for a seamless and simplified recharge experience for Indian smartphone users powered through FreeCharge.

Recharge 2.0 aims to bridge this gap and introduce features that provide comprehensive analysis on usage patterns alongside real-time updates to offer more control in the hands of pre-paid users. Powered by an OS-level integration pioneered by Indus OS, Recharge 2.0 encourages smart usage of prepaid balance along with a superior and intuitive mobile recharge experience powered by FreeCharge.

The OS-integrated payment innovation on Indus Dialer is seamless and accessible in the most natural interface, the phone dialer – moving beyond the app and web interfaces. The new Indus Dialer allows users one-touch access on the phone dialer to recharge through FreeCharge. It also allows instant information of current balance on the main dialer screen. The user can also analyze historical balance and compare daily, weekly and monthly balance usage across Talk-time, Data and SMS. The user can set thresholds to receive low balance alerts. Additionally, expense of every call can be tracked within the call log and money spent on each contact can also be analyzed, giving complete and accurate information to the user. 

Rakesh Deshmukh, CEO & Co-Founder, Indus OS, said, “Contextual integration of brands and products across tech platforms is the future. This is inevitable in an economy such as ours, where we are just starting to scrape the surface of OS-integrated Brands (OSIB) to address true consumer needs. So, language integration in AI-based services, map integration with location-based services, payment integration with utility-based services, video/audio integration with communication-based services, security integration with government offered services, are amongst many such possibilities that will be explored. We have been working towards this and developed success cases, for instance, the Indus Reader (Text-to-Speech feature) developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and IT.”

Govind Rajan, CEO, Freecharge, said, “We are extremely pleased to launch contextual payments by way of Recharge 2.0 – a one-touch recharging and balance analytics product for the users of Indus OS, which is a first-of-its-kind product launched by anyone in the world. FreeCharge has always taken immense pride in its simple and intuitive user experience. Contextual payments take this a step forward with the one-touch recharge interface that comes with Recharge 2.0. At present, we have collaborated for recharge payments being powered through FreeCharge on Indus OS, but soon we plan to expand the scope to all kind of payment services like DTH recharges, electricity bill payments, merchant payments in both the online and offline space. Additionally, the FreeCharge experience will now be available in twelve major regional languages with Indus OS which will provide us a chance to serve the regional smartphone users as well.”

Recharge 2.0 will be exclusively accessible to the existing 6 million-plus Indus OS user base and new users of Indus OS powered-devices. Indus OS is currently the #2 mobile OS in India, with a 7.6% market share. By catering to Indus OS’ user base via the OS-Integrated Brands, FreeCharge expects to scale up its recharge transactions and volumes by nearly 20%. FreeCharge currently sees a major chunk of its transaction coming through the recharge’s category.

In the face of the latest developments in the payment infrastructure and the burgeoning cashless economy of India, Indus OS and FreeCharge have taken a proactive effort to encourage refined payment habits and patterns.

Secondary data indicates that a whopping 95% of mobile users are prepaid, and a sizeable amount of 30% users are making mobile recharge by M-payments. On the hardware front, only 40% smartphones in the market are capable of online recharge. This payment innovation in the OS-level will be the easiest and the most contextual payment option in this given scenario. Both companies are syndicated on the strategy, to develop a specialized offering rather than a one-size-fits-all. FreeCharge which already witnesses 90% of its transactions coming through the App will further broaden its M-payment base by serving more than 6 million customers of Indus OS.