Two years on, not one Indian app within reach of TikTok's popularity

A BS analysis shows no Indian app has been able to garner as many unique visitors as TikTok did before it was banned

The buzz about Indian short video social media apps became louder on Monday with ShareChat’s parent company, Mohalla Tech, raising nearly $300 million in funding from Google, Times Group and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings. However, when it comes to matching the popularity bar set by TikTok, the banned Chinese app, the Indian apps still have some way to go.

The new round puts the company’s valuation at $5 billion, up from the $3.7 billion valuation in a funding round in December 2021. ShareChat had raised $266 million in December 2021 as part of Series G in a round led by Alkeon capital.

Though ShareChat and its sister app, Moj, have been able to apportion a larger proportion of the Indian market, a Business Standard analysis shows that even after two years of the government banning Chinese apps, no company has come close to TikTok’s market share.

Data from Comscore shows that TikTok in May 2020, just a month before its ban, accounted for 41 per cent of mobile internet users as its unique visitors. BIGO Live, another app banned by the Indian authorities, had 7.8 per cent share of the country’s total mobile, web, and app audience. Sharechat, on the other hand, had a 3.6 per cent share of total unique visitors.

The latest data, analysed by Business Standard, indicates that even though ShareChat and its sister app Moj, which recently merged with MX TakaTak, have been able to apportion a more significant share since, it is still a fourth lower than TikTok’s. The combined share of ShareChat and Moj in April 2022 was 31.3 per cent. ShareChat accounted for 23.17 per cent of total unique visitors, whereas Moj had an 8.1 per cent share. The competition, Josh and Chingari, only had a 4.65 per cent and 3.35 per cent share, respectively.

In absolute terms, ShareChat had 112.5 million unique visitors in April, compared to 39.3 million for Moj and 22.6 million and 16.3 million for Josh and Chingari, respectively.

In terms of time spent, only 1.89 per cent of the total minutes spent by the overall audience were on ShareChat; others had an even lower share. Moj had a 0.11 per cent share.