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India this week outlawed 59 Chinese-owned apps including TikTok
and Tencent's <0700.HK> WeChat, in what was described as a
"digital strike" against China by the country's technology
minister.
The move followed a confrontation between India and China at a
disputed Himalayan border site, which left 20 Indian soldiers
dead.
With 200 million Indians users, TikTok, which features a simple
user interface, background music options and various special
effects, was a burgeoning force in the nation's social media
scene and the ban left its fans scrambling for options.
Roposo, an Indian video-sharing social media app similar to
TikTok that been around since 2014, saw its user base jump by 22
million in the two days after India banned the Chinese apps, the
company's founder Mayank Bhangadia told Reuters.
"In the last few days I've slept for a total of five hours, and
its the same for our entire team," Bhangadia said. "The load is
so much and we're just ensuring that the experience is as smooth
as possible."
Roposo's downloads on Google's Android now total over 80
million, and Bhangadia expects that to reach 100 million in just
a few days. Before the ban, Roposo had roughly 50 million
installs on Android devices, which account for a bulk of India's
nearly 500 million smartphones.
Based in the southern Indian tech hub of Bengaluru, the company
has just 200 staff now but is planning to hire as many as 10,000
people over the next two years and may take the app global,
Bhangadia said.
Other home-grown TikTok alternatives such as Chingari and Mitron
are also finding favour with users, with many taking to social
media to echo Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for "atma-nirbhar"
or self-reliant India.
MyGov, the federal government's citizen engagement website, last
month created its account on Roposo.
"We have to create our own ecosystem, every country has done
this, this is our atma-nirbhar programme," said a government
minister.
New players are also jumping into the fray. Mumbai-based Zee
Entertainment Enterprises <ZEE.NS> is set to launch an
ad-supported, short-video platform, named HiPi, in the next two
months, Rajneel Kumar, the product head for its digital unit
Zee5 said.
He hoped that former TikTok users would "find a home within Hipi
to be able to continue to enjoy the content they enjoyed."
(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal; Additional reporting by Sanjeev
Miglani; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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