Tez Tears Up The Download Landscape

Remember back in September, when it seemed like the hot weather would never end and the leaves would never fall? Well, guess what: both happened. We also got introduced to Google’s Tez program that month, and it went from a theoretical construct to an actual thing in India. What’s more, it also went to a straight-up hit, landing 7.5 million installs in its first month and an install base so active that they’re averaging about four transactions a month.

That’s right, the word is that those 7.5 million installs in the first month have already accounted for around 30 million transactions so far. Granted, that’s not a record—the current record in India is BHIM, who picked up 10 million installs in 10 days—but it’s certainly enough to catch user and shareholder interest alike.

Tez seeks to distinguish itself in the market in several ways, and perhaps the biggest attention-getter is the cash mode that allows devices near to the system running Tez to accept mobile payments via audio frequencies. Throw in some pretty impressive security and anti-fraud tools and you’ve got a nice package for those who would be mobile payment users if they weren’t so concerned about potential theft.

Tez walks into a market that’s pretty amenable to this sort of thing right now; following last year’s disastrous move to demonetize most of India’s currency, mobile payments sprung up as the great new alternative to losing almost everything you owned. While there were several mobile payments systems in place in the country at the time—which made Tez (which means “fast” in India) kind of a long shot for success—it seems that Tez has found at least some kind of market niche it can work with. The sheer size of the Indian market makes it worth playing in, and Tez will have at least some of that.

While Tez will likely have its work cut out for it going forward, it’s already made one doozy of a landing in-country. Seven and a half million installs in one month, and each making an average of four transactions each in that month—you know full well that some are making more, and others less—adds up to what sounds like a big win for Google.