Indian origin content apps have been witnessing an increase in the utilization ever since the lockdown started and it was further increased as millions of users switched to home grown apps after the recent ban of TikTok and 58other China based apps.
Recently, the social media platform, ShareChat, announced the complete transfer of its infrastructure that serves over 60 million active monthly users to Google Cloud. The regional platform made the shift to scale its business, improve efficiency, reduce costs and enhance the overall performance of the app that homes active users in 15 Indian languages.
Today, as the people are getting adjusted to the new norm, apps have become very close to them. Be it office meetings, or even online classes, apps are now becoming a new lifestyle.
As organizations begin their journey from managing crisis to accelerating recovery, amid the hold of COVID-19 pandemic, the face of market economy is changing as many new rules are being built in the game. Remote working has geared up Future of Work to a whole new level, where enterprises are forced to rethink the work scenario for business resilience.
Trade figures suggest that India is the biggest importer of Chinese consumer goods. India imports almost seven times more from China than it exports to it. India has a huge trade deficit with China – it’s largest with any country. The range of goods that we import from China is massive.
It needs to be acknowledged that China’s exports to India account for only 2% of its total exports. Data also suggests that China is India’s largest trading partner, but the trade is heavily skewed in favour of China. Thus initiating a trade war when Indian manufacturing ability is limited and is not going to favour India.
India and China’s relations, though not hand- in- glove, yet were into trade relations, since ages. China earned maximum from trade with India, is an open secret. The border dispute between the two countries has dissolved China market into India’s thin air. Indian app market seems to flourish in the coming years.
A few Indian app torch bearers had their views on dynamic shifts to be seen in industry after app ban and how long will it sustain; VARIndia managed to take a note of it.
HEAR IT FROM THE INDUSTRY PERSONALITIES
Dr. Ajay Data
Founder and CEO, Data Ingenious Global says-
“The dynamic shifts that are likely to occur in Indian app development industry will involve encouragement towards vernacular and local content. Applications will be developed with extensive research and market mapping. While multiple foreign apps already dominate the market, attempts will be focussed towards building two kinds of applications and softwares, one which act as a substitute, and another which are unique in their capacities to create a niche user base for themselves.
Apart from this young IT minds will be more keen on developing unique technological innovations, in incubator programs organised by institutions. The consumer mind is in the right framework, with Chinese apps ban; inclination and acceptance towards organic products and services is likely to be higher. Govt’s support by ‘Vocal for Local’ campaign is another boost to the indigenous industries.
India holds a lot of potential in terms of IT and technology innovation. The effect on people in terms of app ban will get diluted in sometime as there are already better Indian substitutes for the same. Rather this decision by our Ministry and authorities is a stepping stone for promoting home grown products and services. This will be a great boost to our economy. In 2019, the size of video conferencing market globally was estimated to be more than 6 bn USD by 2026 with about 10% CAGR but we believe, Covid-19 has fuelled that growth and we are already in verge of those numbers by 2020, India having so many young IT experts if provided the right resources can contribute a substantial market share globally”.
Raghu Raaj Shekhar
Founder and CEO of Monkhub Innovations believes-
“This is a great opportunity for the Indian IT eco system to prove its dominance in the app segment. Initially driven by public sentiment, there has been a demand to use apps Made in India now. Beginning from “Remove China App”, which was later banned by Google, users are tending more towards Indian apps. With this, there is an instant to the developer ecosystem which was earlier lacking the motivation.
With that energy and support from the Indian government, I believe we are in the right track of putting ourselves in the digital map! A cyclical process has begun now. Apps like Mitron have received funding at a very early stage which gives them the ideal chance to develop a Tik Tok type app at a large scale. Looking at the long run, with such support from the user base and the government, I am sure in the coming days, we are going to be a force to reckon with.
In the end, everything boils down to the product. We need to achieve the ideal product market fit. There should be sufficient user engagement to have that. With the app bans, and high emotional sentiment, the developer community has reached a stage where they can compete against organisations with deep pockets. That being said, the users are also giving chances to apps rectify the mistakes and come up with a fantastic end product. Indian start ups who have achieved success have mostly digitised operations of activities which was earlier done physically. But, at this moment and utilising this opportunity we can right now build digital products such as Facebook, Instagram which can change the dynamics of the ecosystem altogether”.
Praval Singh
Vice-President, Zoho Corp commented-
“There are five key shifts and impacts that I expect to see:
1. A stronger-than-ever push for 'Made in India' apps: This will create a huge opportunity for developers and businesses in India. Furthermore, the Government of India has recently announced the 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge' and is encouraging app developers to work on technology solutions that solve problems for India and the world.
2. A surge in the usage of alternative apps: Content creators and influencers who were thriving on TikTok will look for alternatives. That brings a huge opportunity for Indian short-form video apps such as Mitron, Chingari, and others. Apps like Myntra might attract users from Shein, which is now banned. We already see a surge in downloads for Zoho Doc Scanner on iOS and Android platforms—it replaces, now banned, CamScanner.
3. Impact on Chinese app companies: There’s a potential loss of advertising revenues for the Chinese app companies like Bytedance (owner of TikTok). While India's contribution to ByteDance's revenues was meager, the way its user base grew in India, made the country an extremely promising market for the company. In just Q1 2020, more than 30% of the downloads for TikTok came from India.
4. Increase in awareness around privacy and security amongst the users and app developers: The ban will encourage app developers to be cautious with users' data and to work towards establishing trust via transparency in their policies.
5. Impact on future investments from Chinese companies and VCs: Until there is more clarity on how this app-ban would play out, it is safe to assume that Chinese investment in the country would not come in as often as it has in the last several years. ByteDance had plans to invest close to $1 billion in India, which would likely be deferred, if not canceled altogether.
The app-ban policy has led to a ripple effect in the industry, impacting all stakeholders—app developers, content creators, and users (consumers)”.
Sandeep Singh
Co Founder and President, Khabri says-
“Chinese economic imperialism is a big global challenge today and the countries world over have been complacent about it till it starting hurting all of us badly. This app ban is a tremendous opportunity for Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem.
We are a young country with 65% below the age of 35 compared to 37% in China. Ever strong middle class takes care of the scale. All we need to do is look inwards and also leverage our expat community. There definitely will be a period of struggle in transitioning but Chinese dependency is also not a solution. Remember India is no push over like Pakistan, Iran or Srilanka to allow Chinese to take control.
The ad spends were not that huge on these platforms as TikTok the leader was making close to 6 million dollars a year in top line, which shows that the brands were actually not on a stampede mode for these platforms. The total ad spend in India is close to 11 billion dollars. On the other hand, the data privacy was a much bigger problem. I don't see much of an impact in the market in the long run, and even if these apps make a re entry through WTO ruling or something, which is highly unlikely, the consumer sentiment has moved away”.
Ankit Chaudhari
Co Founder, Aiisma said-
“Chinese tech & app economy owing to the Chinese Digital Firewall had evolved sooner compared to India’s and that is the reason we saw the recent rise of TikTok and others as well that started to challenge the supremacy of Silicon Valley startup’s in the space. Both China & India have a huge advantage of high population density that once it falls behind a technology can skew the dynamics quite a lot. And this is the biggest advantage that the current app ban has given Indian entrepreneurs. While we aren’t putting up a digital wall similar to China we have created an opportunity for Indian entrepreneurs to take advantage of the power of local users behind them and progress to learn and challenge existing leaders.
As an immediate trend we have seen that apps that are replacing the banned apps are seeing a lot of traction. This will create experience building consumer products & over the coming months & years give the Indian entrepreneurs an opportunity to understand these dynamics as well as start creating original consumer apps which is where we need to get an original Indian app, growing to lead the space”
Apart from the above, the Industry peers too showed their full support on the Apps ban
CAIT and domestic social media app ShareChat too gave a green signal to the government’s move to ban 59 Chinese apps. Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said the ban on 59 mobile apps will be a big support to its 'Boycott Chinese Goods' campaign.
"This huge unprecedented step will go a long way in strengthening the 'Boycott China' campaign of CAIT. The Boycott China movement is now well and truly a national reality and seven crore traders of India stands in solidarity with the Union Government," CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said in a statement.
Share Chat Director, Public Policy & Policy Head Berges Malu also welcomed the move.
"This is a welcome move from the government against platforms that have had serious privacy, cyber security and national security risks. We expect the government to continue their support for the Indian startup ecosystem," he said.
Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO of InMobi Group, parent group of Roposo, said,
"This is the digital Aatmanirbhar moment that most Indians have been rooting for.As the number one top video app on the Google Play Store, Roposo is very well positioned to lead this movement. Roposo will continue to build on the trust and love that 55 million Indian users have placed in us,” said Tewari.
Shudeep Majumdar, CEO and Director of Corporate Affairs, Zefmo Media Pvt. Ltd
“While the influencer marketing industry is fully supportive of the ban on Chinese apps, millions of Indian creators will now need to find local alternatives to express themselves on social media. Many popular influencers on TikTok shifted to YouTube during the last couple of months due to the ensuing debate between the two social media platforms.
However, millions continued their presence on TikTok due to the instant format connection of the social media platform. And they will be greatly impacted. Also, live streaming apps like Bigo and others that allowed creators from smaller towns and villages to showcase their talent will now need to find other outreach mediums. Influencers who used to make an earning by being on some Chinese made app or the other have to quickly shift to other apps and they need to rely on the tried and tested apps, namely – Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. It will be back to basics and building their following from scratch. The influencer community needs to align itself with the national interest and should not lose heart."
In lieu of the same, Sumit Ghosh, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Chinagri App, said,
"This is a very good step taken by the Govt of India and the IT Ministry of India. For a very long time Tik Tok has been spying on users and sending back the data to China. We are happy that this step has been finally taken.
I thank and congratulate Narendra Modi sir. And we assure we would like to welcome all the users of TikTok to come and try our Chingari, which is a 100% India grown app, and made for the passionate Indians."
On the other hand, Asif Mohamed, CTO & Co-Founder, Momspresso, India's largest UGC sharing platform for women says,
"At Momspresso, we have been focused on scaling our Cloud presence since the last one year when we decided to move to a Multi-cloud deployment to ensure the least amount of downtime. We use both AWS and Google Cloud Platform for our services and our servers are set up to auto-scale. We have seen a consistent peak of server utilisation and new servers being launched automatically since March of this year as the content creation and consumption on our platform has more than doubled in these last 3 months”.
While Anish Khandelwal, Founder & CTO, Mitron TV Homegrown Social video app says,
"We have built a solid backend infrastructure, hosted on AWS servers in India. It is a completely scalable cloud infrastructure and that is helping us to cater to the sharp rise in traffic and engagement on the Mitron App. We are particularly happy with how our product team has been able to respond proactively and ensure that there is no downtime for our users’ experience”.
Rizzle app’s co founder Vidya Narayan too spoke her heart out,
“Indian content creators are highly talented. After the ban of TikTok and other Chinese apps, we see an enormous adoption of Indian apps by such innovative talent in our country. Our PM’s Vocal for Local is our inspiration to take the homegrown app Rizzle to not just a local audience but to a global audience too. We acknowledge the limited number of platforms available for those who have flair for creating original short content and to this end; we have launched “RSeries Originals”. The hunt is aimed at nurturing the careers of our actors, producers, storytellers, YouTubers, and ex-TikTokers. Our program has been designed to support creators with financial assistance to produce their shows and series and take their careers to the next level.”
Huzefa Motiwala, Senior Director, Sales Engineering, Commvault said,
“The pandemic has certainly induced many new ways of work and play into our already burgeoning digital lives. What it also did was it made people spend more time online, as people were either working remotely or were pushed to keep themselves entertained within the realms of their home. The digital explosion opened a gateway for app developers –with many entertainment apps gaining momentum and new COVID related apps flourishing every day.
Today, data has immense value. Your data, for example, can be sold for advertisers to target, hackers to compromise, or other third parties to use for research or perhaps less malign intents. With more consumers taking to their smartphones and apps, the opportunities for hackers looking to misappropriate consumer data have undoubtedly increased, too. So, we should be asking ourselves: who (if anyone), do you trust with that information? How can you guard and protect it from those you don’t trust having it? According to a report by Raconteur Media the digital universe is predicted to grow ten-fold to 44ZB this year. If these stats make you worry, I think it’s time to start asking these difficult questions as the game board keeps changing, with a new app surfacing every single day.
The most extreme option to stay safe would be to just unplug your internet router and stow away all smartphones, but that is neither realistic nor practical. The need of the hour is to have robust, safer data management mechanisms in place to ensure your data is secure. We can do that by creating a culture of awareness towards our data -hygiene and -management best practices, from business to individual use and dissemination. For example, always using legitimate apps, only downloading them from fully accredited, legitimate platforms, and always using the most up-to-date versions of an app. For the super security-minded out there, you can even check the developer account that posted an app if you still aren’t convinced of its legitimacy.
These are early smoke signals and the sooner we employ a holistic modern protection approach to our data, the safer we are in the digital world.”
With the latest move from the government on banning 59 Chinese Apps, including TikTok and UC browser which were a favourite more among the Indian people, suffered the heat the most. It was said that they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country.
The ban, which comes in the backdrop of current stand-off along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh with Chinese troops, is also applicable for WeChat and Bigo Live.
NITI Aayog CEO, Amitabh Kant finally gave his verdict on the whole concept of India banning China apps. He added this whole concept to Indian safety and sovereignty that was at stake.
"All Apps released in India must adhere to India's data integrity, privacy, sovereignty and transparency. They must be transparent in origin and final destination of data. India has to be a data sovereign country. This is critical. Apps against whom action is taken are lifestyle apps," Kant tweeted.
All in all it was a perfect safe step to save India’s privacy, transparency that was being or would have been in danger in the near future.
Well, it shows the step was also a leap towards AtmaNirbhar Bharat. Let’s hope this leap gives us wings to fly higher and reach the skies of progress in the coming years.
Till then take care, stay safe!!
