With the ban on 59 Chinese apps in India, ‘Made in India’ apps are gaining popularity as substitutes for them.
Chingari, Tik Tok’s alternative is gaining popularity with over 1 crore downloads (as of July 3) on Google Play Store within a short span of time.
Read on to find out more…
Chingari Sees a Massive Growth Since the Chinese-App Ban!
Chingari has been reviewed by over 95k users on Play Store with ratings standing at 4.1.
With the ban in place,Chingari claims that its app downloads have skyrocketed to crossing the 1 crore mark from 5 lakh last month.
Chingari’s co-founder and Chief of Product Sumit Ghosh told PTI, “We have been witnessing massive growth three weeks prior, which has accelerated further after the government’s ban (of 59 Chinese apps). We already have over 1.1 crore downloads and 70 lakh users everyday on our platform.”
Ghosh said Chingari is now ramping up its operations and plans to put in place a 100-member team for content moderation in the next 6 months.
He also said, “”We have a nimble team right now, about 20 people. But given the growth that we are registering, we will be investing aggressively and scaling up operations.”
A French security researcher, Robert Baptiste recently claimed that the company behind the app Chingari, Globussoft, was compromised and that the site had malware.
When questioned about this, Ghosh responded that the flaw will be fixed soon.
Chingari May Get Fundings!
Since the ban, Chingari began to get 1 lakh downloads per hour. Ghosh’s first reaction and quoting his words was, “what just happened?!”
He said, ”The startup which has raised no funds so far, took one and a half years to get to 1 lakh downloads, since its launch in November 2018.” Although now, the app is adding 3-4 million users every day, he said.
The Bengaluru-based company has caught the attention of a global venture capital firm, according to a source. The funding announcement is likely soon, the source said.
Ghosh didn’t confirm or deny the news. However he did open up about this ‘opportunity of a lifetime’.
Ghosh said. “I’m sure even Mark Zuckerberg has not seen this moment – of adding 600,000 users every hour.”
Ghosh told Business Insider (BI) that the company is looking for new hirings. The team needs 10-15 people like UI/UX designers, engineers among others immediately to help with the surging traffic.
An opportunity of this scale comes to a very few entrepreneurs, he added, “We were at the right place at the right time. We have been doing this for a while, but we didn’t get the traction that the app deserved. And it’s finally happening now.”
Ghosh in the exclusive chat with BI said, ““We were trending on the playstore even before the ban. The trend began with Sonam Wangchuk’s video appeal to use Made in India apps. We started asking people to try our Made in India app and that sentiment went viral, people started posting on Instagram asking everyone to try Chingari.”
Chingari’s popularity further grew when Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group downloaded the app and took to twitter to say, “I hadn’t ever downloaded TikTok but I have just downloaded Chingari… More power to you…”
Although, with the increasing popularity came increased traffic. This often led to server issue. But the team worked continuously for 48 hours to solve the obstacles.
Many users as well as investors are rooting for this ‘Made in India’ app’s success in the country!
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