TikTok's India Rivals Score Titanic User Numbers After China Apps Ban Latest

In late June, when India banned 59 Chinese apps, including global sensation TikTok, the short video platform stopped working for its 200 million local users. Within hours, an avalanche of new subscriptions brought the servers of one of its Bangalore-based rivals Roposo to a breaking point.

Two weeks later, Roposo, which also offers short videos, says it is reaching 500,000 new users per hour and hopes to have 100 million by the end of the month. That's almost double the 55 million it had before the ban, and it puts Roposo among a profusion of Indian startups to profit from TikTok's troubles in the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government ban covered other big Chinese names such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s UC mobile browser and Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s WeChat messaging app, and came amid a brutal border clash between India and China that left 20 Indian soldiers dead.

While India cited privacy and security concerns, the restrictions are about to dramatically alter the competitive landscape in the nation's digital economy. They give local companies the opportunity to earn a large part of the country's more than 500 million internet inhabitants. And they could pave the way for some Indian companies to compete more aggressively with global giants like Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc., which are also looking to take advantage of one of the world's biggest digital booms.

"It was an instant rocket for the country's app startups," said Naveen Tewari, founder of the startup that owns Roposo, chewing nuts in the context of studying red brick walls at his Bangalore home in a recent Zoom call. "We have a viable opportunity to become the world's fourth technology hub after the United States, China, and Russia."

InMobi, its decade-old digital advertising company, the parent company of Roposo, in previous years obtained investments from global names such as SoftBank Group. Last year, PayPal billionaire cofounder and investor Peter Thiel backed his unit, Glance, which it acquired Roposo in November.

Roposo features videos showing Bollywood music movements, humor less ribs, jokes, fashion and even jokes about the coronavirus pandemic. Roposo, as Tewari said, is the application that you will not be ashamed to show your mother.

TikTok has faced censorship from courts, women's groups, users and governments for content seen as sexually explicit or for describing events such as acid attacks on women. Roposo and other Indian TikTok imitators, on the other hand, market their content for fun that is more in line with the relatively conservative culture of India.

TikTok did not respond to requests for comment for this story. In a June 30 statement, she said she was invited to meet with government stakeholders to provide clarification, and has met and will continue to meet data security and data privacy requirements under Indian law. In the past, the Chinese app emphasized its efforts to moderate content, saying that its policies do not allow videos that put people's safety at risk, promote physical harm, or glorify violence against women. Earlier this year, she suspended the account of a prominent content creator for posting a simulated acid attack video.

From NDTV News