Government agencies, enterprises keen on adopting Zoho's Ulaa web browser

In 2021, Zoho said that the company is developing a new messaging app for users looking for a WhatsApp alternative called Arattai.

Ulaa, Zoho's new privacy-centered homegrown web browser that was launched last month, is seeing increased traction from various Government agencies and large enterprises across the globe, said Praval Singh,Vice President, Marketing and Customer Experience, Zoho Corp in an interaction with Moneycontrol.

“We have already got some interest from Government agencies, they got very curious and some of them are already trying it. Our dedicated security team is already in conversation regarding this…Ulaa is also gaining a lot of traction from large enterprises,” Singh said.

Software-as-a-Service major Zoho Corporation on May 4 launched Ulaa, a web browser built specifically to secure personal data with pre-built capabilities that universally block tracking and website surveillance.

Europe is a big market due to the country’s strict privacy regulations, added Sudipta Deb, Product Manager, Ulaa.

“Europe is one interesting market where we are seeing traction. Ulaa being able to provide the functionality required for being GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) compliant is well-received by this market” he said.

Google Chrome currently leads the web browser market with a 63.45 percent market share as of April 2023, followed by Apple's Safari (20.48 percent), Microsoft Edge (4.97 percent), and Mozilla Firefox (2.76 percent), as per latest data from web analytics firm Statcounter.

“The addressable market in India alone the internet active users are expected to be around 900 million by 2025 and it is a huge base…over the recent years, more and more people are becoming privacy-conscious. Most of us including us did not know earlier about how much data the existing web browsers are siphoning from us. As more and more people become aware, we feel people will look for privacy-centered browsers and that’s where Ulaa comes to play,” Singh added.

No Ad revenues for Ulaa

Ulaa is presently free for all and its desktop version is available for download. The iOS and Android versions are currently in beta and are available for download for users.

As a company, we have decided that we will not be making money through advertisement and that stays for Ulaa as well. Ulaa will not be serving any Ads and that will not be our revenue model, Singh said.

Sustainability Roadmap

Zoho may look at monetisation through add-ons from the Ulaa web browser.

“What we do intend to do is that we expect enterprises medium, and large ones to adopt this web browser and as the product evolves we will look at bringing add-ons. We will look at Add-ons that we can sell to enterprises. Very early days to comment on the details now,” Singh said.

“As the product gets adopted by various users we will look at monetising through add-ons and additional functionalities,” he added.

Zoho’s Arattai Product

In 2021, Zoho said that the company is developing a new messaging app for users looking for a WhatsApp alternative called Arattai.

Arattai, in Tamil, means chit-chat. Zoho’s founder Sridhar Vembu confirmed that the company will be rolling out its messaging app to users very soon. He further stated that the app is being currently tested as part of the “Friends-and-family trial release”.

“The project is been on. Certain things around end-to-end encryption and some of the other functionalities are getting developed internally. It is not that the app is not used, there are certain things that need improvement and we are working on it,” said Singh.

“There is a dedicated team and we will very soon launch the product. Until then people are continuing to use it” he added.

Zoho reported revenue from operations of Rs 6,711 crore in FY22 from Rs 5,230 crore in FY21 as per the data available with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). Revenue from enterprise IT management software grew 4% year-on-year to Rs 3,158 crore in FY22.