With India banning Chinese apps like Baidu, Weibo; TakaTak is becoming the new TikTok!

As India has taken measures to digitally strike the Chinese government as a response to the recent border clash. A month ago, the government starts the digital strike, the first one includes the ban of 59 Chinese apps including TikTok and SHAREit was taken on June 29, and then weeks later another digital strike took place with the ban of 47 more Chinese apps which includes the clones and different versions of the Chinese apps. Now India is moving towards the third digital strike with a ban on the top Chinese apps like Baidu and Weibo. 

Baidu search and Weibo, among the most influential apps of china. They are the country’s dubbed for Google and Twitter respectively. And have been decided to be blocked from India app stores as a measure of data privacy and security concerns. Weibo was launched in 2009, has over 500 million registered users worldwide. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a star user of this app. It is a Chinese microblogging website used by Modi since 2015 ahead of his visit to the neighboring country. But he had to quit the Weibo because of the heightened tensions in India. Whereas the Baidu app has been testing waters in India and the company even wanted to invest more in India, for that the CEO Robin Li, visited the IIT-Madras campus for research this year. During his visit, he claims that the company wants to work with Indian technology institutions, especially in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) and mobile computing. This is a good deal, but now not applicable!

These two apps are the flagship for the Chinese government, is now decided to be blocked from Indian app stores as well as to remove their links by the Internet Service Providers (ISP). The speed government is taking actions to block these apps, it looks like more are coming. A total of 275 apps was on the government radar for possible violations of national security and user privacy, including PubG.

Meanwhile, the homegrown short-video players ShareChat’s Moj, MX Player-owned TakaTak, and DailyHunt’s Josh have seen early gains on the back of TikTok bans in India. The time spent per user on this app has been increased widely, TakaTak’s led the charts with 23 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for Moj, and 7.5 minutes for Josh. All these short-video platforms are experiencing almost 100-120 million daily active users who are up to grab because of the ban imposed by the government. 

Is TakaTak becoming the new TikTok?

“A combination of creator tools, a very strong technology backbone with machine learning-based personalization and the strength of the MX brand has led to us emerging as the number one app,” said Karan Bedi, CEO MX player. 

In the past month, TakaTak has been able to rope in the largest number of top influencers with likes of Gima Ashi and Nisha Gurgain (the video making starts) exclusively on its platform. Meanwhile, Dailyhunt’s Josh crossed 500 million video plays with an average of 65 videos played by users per day. And, TakaTak crossed over 800 million videos played per day.  

However, alternative apps like Roposo, Chingali, Zili, and Dubsmash are also gaining a significant presence in the youth, have seen a downside recently. 

In this industry most important is user retention on the apps and which is monitored very closely. The user’s retention is based on several aspects such as the platform’s ability to lure creators, built product features, and negotiate music rights. The longevity on the apps depends on their product quality and clearly it appears that TakaTak is doing really well in that portion. The ban on international apps will fuel a stronger consumer sentiment and acceptance towards truly Indian technological products. 

However, Retention has been a greater challenge to overcome. The similarWeb applications have forecasted a drop in 30-day retention in alternative apps like Roposo, Zili, and so on. Meanwhile, Chinese app Snack Video making shows the retention upward touching 12% whereas TikTok and Instagram have a retention of 25%. 

The TakaTak has received a whopping 4.3 rating on the play store so far. Users may not get the same experience as the Chinese apps but you need to be very careful before using the apps now. You need to first confirm that your shared data is secured! And these platforms ensures that…

However, downloading any app only showcase the interests of the user, but retention is the true test of engagement and longevity, especially in the social networking platforms.

TakaTak debuted in the market amid the rising chorus for “Made in India”. The void left by the ban of the apps led to the surge in the demand of TakaTak.