Homegrown apps capture 40% market share of TikTok since ban

Homegrown short-video making apps led by Josh have captured 40 per cent market share of their Chinese rival TikTok since the Indian government banned it along with other apps in June this year, according to a new report.

Post ban on TikTok, a huge void was created and nearly 170 million TikTok users were left searching for options to entertain themselves at low cost.

TikTok which had nearly 85 million users in India in June 2018, surged to reach over 167 million users by June 2020, when a ban was slapped on the platform over national security concerns.

Sensing a great opportunity here, Indian content players like Dailyhunt (that owns Josh which is currently the leading domestic platform) launched apps like MX TakaTak, Roposo, Chingari, Moj Mitron, Trell and others to fill the huge void.

Even Facebook (Reels) and YouTube (Shorts) also started to offer short-videos in app, considering growth of the short-form video content.

According to data provided by Bengaluru-based market consulting firm RedSeer, the Indian platforms have captured 40 per cent market share of TikTok and Josh is leading the race owing to quality of content, extensive content library and being able to decode user preferences to deliver right content.

"New shortform players have been able to offer users a holistic experience to users with quality content creators getting onboarded," said Anil Kumar, Founder and CEO, RedSeer.

"As Indian players innovate to offer fresh quality content every day, shortform engagement is expected to resurge back to January and grow more than 4 times in next five years," Kumar added.

Roposo currently has more than 33 million monthly across multiple genres in more than 10 languages.

Glance, a subsidiary of InMobi Group and owner of the video-sharing social media platform Roposo, this week announced it has closed a $145 million investment round from Google and existing investor Mithril Capital.

The funding will be used to deepen artificial intelligence (AI) capability and product offerings, including expanding its technology team, across markets for both Glance and Roposo, the company said in a statement.

Roposo was acquired by the leading lock-screen content platform Glance last year for an undisclosed amount.

According to RedSeer, the short-form content penetration currently is around 45 per cent of around 600 million Internet users in India.

The number of Internet users in India set to grow to 970 million from current 600 million in next five years,

Short-form market is also estimated to grow by 4 times on total time spent and reach to 400-450 billion minutes a month from the current 110 billion minutes.

"However, the questions still remain on the monetisation front for the players and potential change in dynamics if the ban on TikTok is lifted," Kumar said.