The ongoing 'YouTube vs TikTok' internet war and the anti-Chinese sentiment owing to the coronavirus pandemic have led to the rise of a new app called ‘Mitron’. The Indian short video-sharing app has reportedly gained the Number Two spot on the Google Play Store within a month of its release.
Mitron has, so far, been downloaded over 5 million times from the Google Play Store. The Indian video-sharing app has been getting over 5 lakh downloads per day on an average, according to Deepak Abbot from mobile marketing and data analytics company Growth Bug. The app’s naming, coupled with its short video format, is said to be the prime reason for the quick growth. ‘Mitron’, which translates to friends in Hindi, is a common term used by PM Modi in several of his speeches and addresses to Indians across the world.
A student of IIT Roorkee has developed the Mitron app and works exactly the same as its Chinese rival TikTok. It offers an easy user interface to create, edit, and share videos. Like TikTok, users can simply swipe up or down to browse through various videos available on the platform.
Users need to sign up to upload their own videos. After signing up, they can tap on the record button, edit the video and then tap ‘Publish’ to upload the video. One can also follow other users to watch their uploaded content on the app.
While the app has seen a significant surge in its downloads, it will be tough for the new app to maintain the growth. TikTok, despite its controversies over the type of content, has been very popular in India and other markets. In 2019, Indians spent over 5.5 billion hours on the short video-sharing app, which is six times more than the 900 hours spent in 2018.
Outside China, India is TikTok’s largest market, which accounts for over 30.3 percent or 611 million app downloads.
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