A clutch of short video entertainment apps have mushroomed to fill the void created after the ban of TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps. While they were growing like wildfire in terms of download numbers and usage for the first few months, the euphoria seems to have been dying down.
Monthly download numbers of Mitron TV, Chingari and Trell have come down to lakhs and thousand from millions, data sourced from Sensor Tower shows. The downloads numbers for Chingari and Trell in the past 30 days stood at 800K and 330K respectively whereas Mitron TV was the least downloaded app with 55K installs.
Since TikTok’s ban in the country on June 29, Mitron TV, Trell and Chingari have recorded 11 million, 14 million and 16 million downloads, respectively.
Roposo, which claimed to have crossed the 100 million lifetime download mark in October, recorded 33 million installs since TikTok’s ban. According to Sensor Tower, the InMobi-owned app also registered a sharp fall in monthly downloads with 1 million installs in the past 30 days.
Made in India and vocal for local narrative worked quite well for Mitron TV, Chingari and Trell as they managed to onboard millions of users. Using the momentum, they also raised investments from blue-chip backers.
Trell, which pivoted from community-based platform to lifestyle centric short video app, had bagged $11 million Series A round in August. Mitron TV and Chingari also bagged substantial capital in their Series A and seed round respectively.
Interestingly, the one app that has gained a large number of downloads following the Chinese app ban is Chinese short video app Snack Video. It registered 190 million downloads since June 29 out of which India contributed 154 million. In the last 30 days, it garnered 35 million downloads from the country, highest in comparison to all short video apps during the period.
Apart from this, deep-pocketed players such as ShareChat’s Moj, Times Internet’s MX TakaTak and DailyHunt’s Josh continue to get downloaded at a good rate.
Josh, MX TakaTak and Moj have cornered 71 million, 66 million and 61 million downloads since June whereas they recorded 12 million, 6.9 million and 8.14 million downloads respectively in the past 30 days.
Over a dozen short video apps triggered music streaming app Gaana, OTT platform ZEE5, social media giants Facebook and Instagram as well as YouTube to launch their own short video platforms. Since these are in-app features, their download numbers couldn’t be ascertained.
Sensing the opportunity, TikTok’s global rival Triller also made its debut in India in July. The US-based company has recorded 4.7 million downloads from India since its launch.
