Gaana Swoops In To Replace TikTok With ‘HotShots’

Gaana.com, India’s largest and top music streaming app, has introduced a new feature that enables users to share short videos made with ‘HotShots’. The move by Gaana is particularly significant when Indian companies are in a race to fill the gap created after the ban of a popular Chinese app TikTok.

How HotShots functions?
Users can create and share short viral videos and stories through HotShots. This is the second feature introduced by Gaana in this segment. Last year, similar to this Gaana, had introduced a vertical video format that allowed celebrities and singers to connect with their audience through short videos.

“Our home-grown entertainment super app is ready to serve as the country’s go-to destination for entertainment across music, podcasts, short viral videos, and buzz, offering aspiring Indians the power to become influencers in their own right with Gaana’s world-class live streaming & short video capabilities,” CEO of Gaana Prashan Agarwal said in a press statement.

There is already a high level of competition in this segment as of now. Customer demand for better UI and UX is a great opportunity for big players like Gaana in the market. Users are in search of better design and user experience, as well as several other exciting features that are on par with TikTok, Vigo, Kwai. This will be a real challenge for the homegrown companies to boost their level of service and features in order to grab the larger share of customers in the market. The race to be the best option in place of TikTok has intensified. With the ban on 59 Chinese App, the existing players in the market saw a rapid increase in the number of downloads.

The latest report by Kalagato, ShareChat, Roposo, Mitron, and Chingari has shown that there is an increase in the time spent, average session time, open rate and daily active users between a time span of June 26 to July 3, owing to the ban imposed by the Indian Government on the Chinese apps on June 29.  Mitron Tv, released in late April, claimed to have more than 17 million users, two million creators along with 5.5 million videos on the platform on July 1. It also raised Rs 2 crore from 3One4 Capital and Lets Venture.

Zee5, in the same race, had also launched the TikTok kind feature a week ago on Zee5’s native app. HiPi an app that is available on both Android, as well as iOS, has been reported last month. Surge-backed Trell is also on its way to becoming a short lifestyle-focused video app.