Indian short-video apps go multilingual as they chase the TikTok dream

Indian short-video applications are not only tapping the massive user base in India, they are taking their game beyond the borders as well, using language as a tool. A few startups are catering to the requirements of non-resident Indians across the world, while others are finding adoption in countries that share a common language with India.

Gurugram-based Bolo Indya is a case in point. “The ban on Tik Tok has allowed content creators to go global — users in Bangladesh consume our content in Bangla, while those in Sri Lanka are consuming content in Tamil as of now,” said Varun Saxena, founder, BoloIndya. The short-video app is also set to be launched in Sinhala, the language spoken by Sri Lanka’s majority population.

While Saxena is sure that TikTok will eventually be back in India, he believes Indian content creators and video startups have a unique opportunity to leverage on during these months to establish a user base across India and globally. He pointed out that 42 percent of Bolo Indya’s users create content in Hindi, followed by 16 percent in Tamil, 17 percent in Telugu and 10-11 percent in Bangla.

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Breaking boundaries

Unlike other startups, content startups can go global right from the beginning. Industry insiders point out that video-based social media platforms have the potential to break geographical barriers much faster than any other business.

Bytedance-owned TikTok, despite being a Chinese company, amassed its largest follower base in India and expanded to many other markets. In the same way, the prevalence of English in India has led to many Indian apps being accepted by default in other countries. This opens multiple monetisation opportunities and brings a larger consumer base for Indian brands to target.

While Bolo Indya is experimenting with different languages to cater to the requirements of south Asian countries, another Bengaluru-based social media platform, Chingari, is getting users from across the globe. The startup is not operational currently in the European Union, but has users in West Asia and the United States.

“It was extremely surprising when we started getting users in the US, but later we realised many NRIs might be experimenting with our platform to follow Indian content creators,” said co-founder Sumit Ghosh during a previous interaction with Moneycontrol.

Sharing the latest trends, the company said it has consumers in 14 markets outside India, with the Asia Pacific, United Arab Emirates and the United States being the biggest after India. Chingari currently has 10 lakh content creators and three lakh daily active users. It has been downloaded 2.8 crore times.

A different approach

Another short-video application, Rizzle, is trying to cater to the US and India market simultaneously. While the startup was born in the US, it quickly scaled up its presence in India and has a large team in Hyderabad. Currently, with more than 95 lakh users, Rizzle is gaining popularity here.

“We do get some users creating content in Spanish, but our primary user base is English followed by Hindi, we are trying to bring in other Indian languages as well,” said Vidya Narayanan, cofounder, Rizzle.

Narayanan teamed up with Lakshminath Dondeti, her ex-colleague from Qualcomm, to start Rizzle. With a wealth of experience from top technology companies, the duo is trying to develop Rizzle as a video-Twitter kind of a platform. Consumers can react to videos with counter videos, and there is no scope for comments on the platform. Creators can also create a 1-minute short video series to build a storyline through the platform.

“We were around even before TikTok was banned in India, and our genre is that of series-based storytelling; this has its own unique user base as well,” said Narayanan, who lives in the US and worked at Google before starting up.

Consolidation ahead?

Indian content creators are actively scouting for the next alternative to TikTok.

Along with early-stage players such as Mitron TV, Chingari, Bolo Indya and Rizzle, more established ones like Sharechat and Roposo are trying innovative means to capture new users and quickly grab a larger slice of the market.

Saxena from Bolo Indya believes that all this will eventually lead to consolidation in the market. “We have around six to seven active short-video apps in the market. This will come down to two or three. Which one emerges the winner will depend on the strategy that clicks,” he added.