Impact on the business of TikTok and other recently banned Chinese apps
Tiktok to lose more than 611 million users in India
It seems that after all Twitter trends do tend to influence the decision of the government. After long advocacy of banning the Chinese app TikTok onTwitter, the centre announced an interim ban on TikTok and other 58 apps with Chinese links. While Twiiteratis wanted a ban on TikTok citing its content, the government cited ’emergent threats’ to the security and sovereignty of the country while banning the app. CamScanner, UCBrowser, Shareit are some other apps which were banned on Monday.
In this article, we will try to find the answers everyone is googling right now – ‘Will the ban on Chinese apps affect the business of the respective Chinese companies’
TikTok
India is the largest market for the Bytedance Technology Pvt Ltd (operates the TikTok app in India) with more than 611 million downloads. The number of downloads accounts for almost one-third of the total download followed by China (The app’s name is different in China – ‘Douyin’) and the US.
In the year 2018-19, the app posted revenue of Rs 43.6 crore and it targeted a revenue of Rs 100 crore in the following year. In India, TikTok has offices in eight cities of India and has more than 1,000 employees.
The Information Technology ministry will seek information from the company or companies running the app about data sharing. As per Chinese law, these companies are bound to share data with the intelligence agencies of China irrespective of the fact that in which country they are operating across the globe.
Read more: India should be Aatmanirbhar in the fight against China, U.S. still a tentative ally
ShareIt
ShareIt is one of the most commonly used apps for sharing data from one phone to another using the WiFi technology. It has more than 400 million active users in India and 1.8 billion users worldwide. The app is governed by ShareIt Technology Pvt Ltd which earned Rs 14.73 crore in the year 2018-19. The total revenue generated by the app in India accounts for 15 to 20 per cent of the company’s global revenues.
CamScanner
CamScanner is by far the most used mobile scanning app in the world. It has more than 100 million users in India and is run by INTSIG Information Co Ltd registered in Shanghai, China. We found no official revenue figure of the app in India.
UC Browser and UCNews
Both the apps are run by an entity called UCWeb Mobile Pvt Ltd and owned by the Alibaba group. It is the second most used Internet browser in India after Google chrome. A total of 70 per cent use Chrome as their browser while 22 per cent people use UC Browser. Both the apps have more than 130 million active users with around 100 employees. It generated Rs 226.68 crore in the year 2018-19 in India.
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