Roposo, TikTok’s Rival, Grows With 5,00,000 New Users Every Hour

Roposo is booming with a lot of business after the Bangalore based start-up has proved itself as the next best option for users after a ban was imposed on TikTok.  The platform is experiencing a huge increase in the number of new users and is all set to achieve a new target of 500,000 new users an hour and 100 million by the month’s end which is double to what it already had that is 55 million before the ban was declared. The flow on the number of users started to gain its momentum after there was a ban imposed on 59 Chinese apps including the most downloaded app that is TikTok. Roposo is one name among the list of Indian start-ups who are in a motive to mint a good amount of money owing to the ban on the short-video platform which was a choice for 200 million local users. 

The move from the Government of India came after a bloody clash that took place between forces of the two nations in which 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, UC Web mobile browser, Tencent Holdings Ltd, WeChat messaging app, are some of the prominent names among the 59 apps that were banned. Indian government while stating the reason behind the ban, raised a concern on the privacy and security of Indian nationals but the whole thing has got a different picture. The ban would let Indian homegrown companies gain a market in India, where half a billion population has access to the internet. The ban will also give these Indian companies a competitive advantage over foreign giants like Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc who are in the race to compete and make their mark in the world’s largest digital hub. 

“It was a rocket ship instant for the country’s app startups,” said Naveen Tewari, founder of the start-up that owns Roposo. He added, “We have a viable chance to become the world’s fourth technology hub after the U.S., China, and Russia.”

InMobi, a digital advertising start-up and also the brainchild of Naveen Tewari bagged a capital from global names such as SoftBank Group in its earlier years. Peter Thiel, known to be a co-founder and billionaire which backed Glance, later acquired Roposo in the month of November.

Roposo is almost a duplicate copy of TikTok with all the features that give users a good reason to download the app. It comes with Bollywood music, humor minus the ribaldry, pranks, fashion, and even jokes about the coronavirus pandemic. It is an app which very beautifully portrayed by its founder is devoid of any indecency or vulgarity to the extent that it can be shared with one’s moms. Unlike TikTok which has been criticized for its content and features by women’s groups, users, and governments, Roposo is all ready to set an example of clean and viable content that ensures pure entertainment for the users without hurting any one’s sentiments, culture, and beliefs. 

TikTok is unresponsive towards the story and said that it was supposed to meet government stakeholders to clear any doubts surrounding the privacy and security concerns of the users under the Indian law.  The Chinese app has previously given importance in moderating the content and emphasized that it is strictly against the videos which bring people’s safety under a question or promote violence. Following the same line of thoughts, it suspended an account of a user who uploaded a video of acid attack and also mocked in its content. Indian Apps faced a lot of issues relating to finances and user-friendly interfaces, unlike Tiktok which enjoys an advantage on it.  Bytedance which backed TikTok was valued at more than $100 billion in May and gave the video-sharing app an edge over the other startups.

Still, the Indian Government’s ban throws open multiple, billion-user business models, said Manjunath Bhat, a senior director analyst at Gartner Inc. “India’s entrepreneurs didn’t lack talent, they were just short on ambition,” Bhat said. “The combined effect of the coronavirus lockdown and the app ban presents a never-before, never-again opportunity.”

Seeing the growing opportunity in the market after the ban on Chinese app many Indian players jumped in like Chingari (Hindi for spark), Mitron (meaning friends), and Bolo Indya (Tell me, India), all with Indian names aiming for better connectivity with the users. New apps also tried their luck like Moj which was just some weeks old. The scenario is somewhat similar in other areas too. Out of the 59 Chines Applications, there appeared the name of Cam Scanner which was also banned. The players now in the market are in a motive to capture customer’s minds, have three similarities between them the apps are made in India, the data is not leaked, and the contents are generally in regional languages. 

Many people are there in the pipeline to capture the Indian Market few among them being the followers of  Sri Sri Ravishankar who developed an app called Elyments, featured as one platform and an answer for WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Mukesh Ambani launched JioMeet, a video conferencing app developed to operate against the popular San Jose-based Zoom.

Sumit Ghosh, the cofounder of Chingari, says many of the China short video apps have adult content designed to grab attention and ensure they go viral. “In contrast, our algorithms are built to ensure trash will never trend on Chingari,” said Ghosh. Its videos are slow-dripped to users to check for offensive content. If multiple users complain, videos are pulled off, he said.

Chingari got its existence after Ghosh and his cofounder started working on the app in times when there was an abundance of data. Chingari was mostly accepted in smaller Indian towns who were in search of content that can be in their language and they can easily relate to it. With time, the app was developed at par with TikTok adding everything that can be a good match to the Chinese app. Chingari too has good news to share with the number of users accelerating from 3.5 million users to 17.5+ million users. The success rate of the app can be easily understood that a company will come into existence with the name Chingari Media Pvt. The process is on with corporate and equity structure, testing revenue strategies, and growing their eight-engineer team. Ghosh an overwhelmed founder is now flooded with a number of messages in his twitter account from TikTok influencers who marketed their products and services on TikTok and now want to be a verified user on Chingari. He says his startup is in “late funding talks”.

An example of the same is Trisha Girdhar who runs an influencer management agency in New Delhi had her bulk earnings from TikTok. The 22-year-old is now planning to shift her star clients and influencers from far-flung towns like Akola, Nabha, Katni, and Birati to Roposo and other platforms.

“Brands are looking seriously at our influencers,” said Girdhar who herself specializes in belly dancing videos and has a fan following on Roposo.

Roposo itself is getting a deluge of influencer marketing agencies and celebrities wanting to come aboard. It’s discussing contracts with celebrity users and content creators. It’s investing in camera filters and Indian themes. “This isn’t an opportunity just for entrepreneurs,” said Tewari. “Investors ought to be rushing over.”