After 'Digital Atmanirbhar' pitch, Indian apps rise up to the challenge

On July 4, four of the top six most downloadable apps were 'made in India' alternatives to TikTok

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launching the “Digital India Atmanirbhar Bharat Innovate Challenge” to develop and promote Indian apps that can compete globally, the new strategy seems to be already showing results.

The move comes hard on the heels of the government banning 59 Chinese apps on June 29. They include popular names like TikTok, Helo, UC Browser, and Shareit. 

With consumers scrambling for “make in India” alternatives, the Indian apps are seeing a huge surge in downloads in the past week.

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is one of the key beneficiaries of the move, with two of its apps which competed with the Chinese seeing a massive surge in their downloads.

Jio Browser competed with Chinese-made UC Browser. And Jio Switch, a file-transfer and -share app, had been locking horns with another Chinese app Shareit, which was far ahead in the game.

From being ranked at a low 139th by App Annie (based on Google Play downloads) on the list for the most popular apps in the applications category and at 14th in the category of tools, Jio Switch has seen a massive turnaround. In less than a week, on July 4, the app went up sharply in the pecking order, hitting 54th rank in the applications category and 3rd slot among tools. And it also entered for the first time the coveted list of App Annie’s top 100 most downloaded apps across categories with 88th rank.

The story was repeated in the case of Jio Browser too. On June 29, the app was ranked 199th in the applications category and 14th in the communications category. But on July 4, it had hit 85th in applications and 7th in the communications category, filling in the yawning gap left by the ban of UC Browser, which, before June 29, was at 77th rank in the overall app ranking, locking horns with Google Chrome.    

But RIL is not the only one. Smaller Indian app companies which have been overwhelmed by TikTok, the video-creating and -sharing app which dominated this segment, are again seeing a big rush, even though till the second week of June they might not have been listed even among the top 100 apps in the country. 

According to the App Annie data, on July 4, four of the top six most downloadable apps across all categories, based on Google Play, were “made in India” alternatives to TikTok. The Chinese app, which had a stranglehold in this market, reigned at 2nd slot, just behind Aarogya Setu, in May.

The four are Roposo (which was launched in 2014), Chingari, ShareChat, and the recently launched Mitron (April 18). US-based SnapChat, which had taken on TikTok, but had lost much of its lustre, was back again in India at 19th spot. 

However, all of them have seen a phenomenal increase in popularity within days of the ban. For instance, Roposo was at 114th in the pecking order on June 20 but improved its rank on June 29 to 29th. But it took them just the ban and a few days to hit top slot.  

ShareChat was ranked 75th on the day of the ban, but just in a few days has hit 6th slot. The story is similar for Chingari, which was seeing a marked improvement in its ranking eventually to hit 2nd slot. 

Despite controversies leading to it being temporarily delisted from Google Play and questions on its ownership, Mitron has caught the imagination of consumers in less than three months of its launch.    

What is interesting is that they have to tread a long and arduous path to get size. None has the following like TikTok — over 200 million active users. In comparison, Roposo has 65 million, Chingari and Mitron have 10 million downloads, and Share Chat has 100 million. Some new players like Zee have joined the bandwagon quietly, with the launch of HiPi. But with the government backing them, that could be much easier.