Homegrown players score high on TikTok's exit from Indian market

Short video app TikTok’s exit from the Indian market has meant opportunity for local players like ShareChat’s Moj, MX Player’s TakaTak, and also for larger tech companies’ short video products such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

As of Thursday, top free apps on Google’s Play Store in India were Moj, TakaTak, Snacky Takatak, Snapchat and Instagram. 

According to a report by RedSeer Consulting in December 2020, “Short-form: Rising Amidst Cluttered Content Space”, Dailyhunt’s Josh, InMobi’s Roposo and Times Internet-owned MX TakaTak were the market leaders.

“Content consumption in India is growing faster than global growth. Users in India need free and bite-sized entertainment, which is not offered by over the top,” said Ujjwal Chaudhry, associate partner at RedSeer Consulting. “OTT needs a high attention span and is focused on diverse genres like drama, sports, etc. Plus, a wide gap exists between free and paid OTT users, implying need for low-cost entertainment. All these indicate a strong need-gap for the short-form.”

Chinese firm ByteDance-owned TikTok managed to onboard over 400 million users in India since its launch in 2017, helped by its regional focus and artificial intelligence algorithms that served personalised content.

“TikTok created the industry and after the ban on it, new Indian players like Josh, Roposo and MX TakaTak have grown multifold. We have seen a resurgence in the sector,” said Chaudhry. “As players increase their content quality further, users and retention would increase, resulting in more than 4X increase in the time spent.”

MX Player's MXTakaTak had 120 million app installs in December, up from 26 million in July. The firm is engaging with content creators in different ways. For instance, it launched a Rs 100-crore creator fund to provide incentives to users for creating engaging content on the short video app, and also held a collaborative content creation event called Fame House in October last year.

"The creators had to find a new home (after the TikTok ban). We are also investing on the technology side. The recommendations and targeting system of the app has to be really robust," said Karan Bedi, CEO, MX Player. 

It is also ensuring that the quality of content on its platform is not problematic, an issue that caused TikTok to run into trouble with Indian authorities and other governments several times. MX TakaTak is using a mix of machine learning and manual monitoring to weed out undesirable content on the platform.

"We are in conversations with a number of brands and agencies but we're going to take a more measured approach to monetisation," added Bedi. 

Another player that has amassed a vast following in the last six months is Moj. It was launched on July 1 last year, just three days after the Indian government banned TikTok and 58 other apps over issues of national security following tensions with China along the border in eastern Ladakh. 

Moj has 80 million monthly active users, and claims to be the fastest Indian short video platform to surpass 100 million downloads on Google Play Store.. The app's daily active user spend is 34 minutes. "Our success can be attributed to our superior product design. Moj offers powerful creative tools backed by a vast music library with licensed content, advanced camera filters and special effects to create highly engaging original content," said Berges Malu, Director, ShareChat.