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<ul><li>56% of Bharat use UPI and 49% use mobile wallets multiple times a week.</li><li>27% of Bharat use paid video streaming services v/s 29% India.</li><li>1 in 5 Bharat users invests in cryptocurrency.</li><li>39% of Bharat uses <keyword id="6354632" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="social-media" source="Orion">social media</keyword> as their primary news consumption platform and prefers it over both print and TV combined.</li></ul><keyword id="3358959" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sharechat" source="Orion">ShareChat</keyword> has released a report titled ‘Bharat - The Neo India’ in association with GroupM that studies the social media behavior, content preferences, spending choices of Bharat1 and India2 users. The report classifies users that prefer Indic language on social media as Bharat users and India users as the ones that prefer using English, across all the regions of India. Bharat users are spread across the country with nearly 40% present in metros and 53% in non-metros. The findings in the report are based on a primary survey by YouGov, conducted among 3,432 social media users across 17 Indian states and with inputs from Kantar on Indic language urban active internet users. The survey finds that Bharat users are as affluent and digitally savvy as India users. Bharat users are at par with India users when it comes to participating in online financial activities. In terms of choice of payment mode, Bharat users are adept at using UPI for online transactions and have a lead over India users in terms of net-banking and debit cards transactions online. Among Bharat users, 56% use UPI and 49% use mobile wallets multiple times a week. Breaking away from traditional means, Bharat users are investing in stocks, mutual funds, e-gold and even cryptocurrency. Bharat users are more engaged on social media as compared to India users. 29% of Bharat users post content daily at least once as compared to 22% of India users. Bharat chooses to stay updated via social media as 39% of Bharat uses it as their primary source of news consumption. Like India, the majority of Bharat users prefer streaming free videos over watching TV. Daily, 50% of Bharat users stream free video online and about 47% watch TV. Social media also emerged as one of the primary influences for making buying decisions for Bharat users. Bharat is increasingly shopping online with 46% buying gadgets online in 2021, followed by other categories like travel bookings, food, clothing and accessories, beauty and skincare are also popular. Unveiling the report, <keyword id="290700" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ajit-varghese" source="Orion">Ajit Varghese</keyword>, Chief Commercial Officer of ShareChat, said, “Bharat users are taking social media by storm. It is interesting to note that the Language first users are at par with English language first users when it comes to digital presence, use of online transaction methods, and shopping habits. Bharat users also outrank when it comes to consuming news, food and beverages, health and fitness, and travel related categories online. Observing similar trends on our platforms, we at ShareChat are excited to be at the forefront of engaging with this audience that is spread across the country.” Commenting on the report, <keyword id="232445" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="prasanth-kumar" source="Orion">Prasanth Kumar</keyword>, CEO – GroupM South Asia said, “From the media planning aspect, Bharat is unique in many ways. This is mostly because all the cities that make Bharat are Indic language-heavy, fragmented and display their own sets of <keyword id="139079" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="consumer-behaviour" source="Orion">consumer behaviour</keyword> traits. This diversity in our country brings in its own challenges and opportunities. Brands and media planners looking to reach target audiences across the country should focus on a customized approach for this segment. With this report, we have put together planning guidelines that will give marketers a direction and a starting framework on how to plan and reach the Bharat user effectively.” Bharat v/s India - Other key findings: <ul><li>Bharat users are showing a propensity to pay for online content with 27% already using paid video streaming services daily</li><li>37% of Bharat users are listening to music, 36% are shopping, and 24% are ordering food online</li><li>In certain categories, Bharat users in specific regions drive higher engagement <ul><li>South: Gaming (39%), Food &amp; Drinks (32%) and Travel (22%)</li><li>West: Travel (22%)</li><li>North: Health and Fitness (29%)</li></ul></li><li>In terms of voice search, Bharat users are leading with 26%, as compared to 15% of Indian users.</li><li>21% of Bharat posts content 4-5 times a week compared to 17% of India</li><li>As per Kantar, there are over 341 million overall urban active internet users and 167 million urban active Indic internet users. The study suggests that urban active Indic internet users over-indexed on NCCS A (New Consumer Classification System) and higher education compared to overall urban active internet users</li><li>33% of the urban active Indic internet users are from NCCS A as compared to 30% among overall urban active internet users</li><li>39% of urban active Indic internet users consists of graduates/postgraduates as compared to 35% among overall urban active internet users</li></ul>

Bharat users are as affluent and digitally savvy as India users: ShareChat and GroupM report

Mohalla Tech, the parent company of homegrown social media apps <keyword id="8678883" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="moj" source="Orion">Moj</keyword> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/advertising/media/article/bharat-users-are-as-affluent-and-digitally-savvy-as-india-users-sharechat-and-groupm-report/articleshow/89154657.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">ShareChat</a>, is acquiring Times Internet-owned short-video platform <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/india-predicted-to-have-650-million-short-form-video-users-by-2025/articleshow/86792986.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">MX TakaTak</a> for nearly $600 million (about Rs 4,500 crore), sources said here on Thursday. In 2021, Mohalla Tech cumulatively raised $913 million, at a valuation of $3.7 billion. The acquisition, sources close to the development told IANS, will further bolster <keyword id="3358959" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sharechat" source="Orion">ShareChat</keyword>'s short-video market share through the platform Moj. When contacted, the companies declined to immediately comment on the development. Moj and ShareChat together have a 340 million-strong user community, while <keyword id="9555198" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mx-takatak" source="Orion">MX TakaTak</keyword> has nearly 150 million monthly active users (MAUs). Founded in 2015, Mohalla Tech has raised over $1.177 billion across eight fundraising rounds to date. Moj currently has an average user time spent of 34 minutes every day, scoring over 4.5 billion views daily. ShareChat is positioned uniquely with an average user time spent of 31 minutes daily. Since January this year, the company has grown to over 2,000 employees and added several new features as it focuses on building its products to be the leader in the Indian short video and social media space. In December, Mohalla Tech raised $266 million as part of its Series G round. "Both our products (Moj and ShareChat) have been leading the market with the highest monthly active user base, a very active creator set and amazing new partnerships to delight our community. This fresh funding will further strengthen our position," said Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and Co-founder, Moj and ShareChat. After the ban on TikTok and other Chinese short-video making apps, the advertisement revenue from Indian short-form space has been growing at a rapid pace and tripled in just six months. According to a latest report by homegrown consulting firm RedSeer Consulting, short-form content has grown 1.37 times in terms of monthly active user (MAU) and 1.1 times in terms of daily active users from June 2020 when Chinese app TikTok was banned in India. The monthly active users of the short-form segment in the country are expected to grow more than two times to reach 650 million users by 2025, clocking the second spot after television. This significant growth is largely expected to be driven by the new 300 million Internet users that will be added by 2025. "Both Josh and Moj apps have seen a good jump in user and creator net promoter score (NPS) largely driven by users seeing more personalisation, fresher and more filtered content, and creators having access to new tools, increased reach and more collaboration opportunities," said the report.

ShareChat to acquire short video platform MX TakaTak for around ₹4,500 crore

<ul><li>The combined short video platform will have over 300M MAUs and 100M strong creator community.</li><li><keyword id="11984975" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="mx-media" source="Orion">MX Media</keyword> and its shareholders will become strategic shareholders of <keyword id="3358959" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="sharechat" source="Orion">ShareChat</keyword>.</li></ul>MX Media Co. Ltd, the parent company of <keyword id="9555198" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="mx-takatak" source="Orion">MX TakaTak</keyword>, and ShareChat, the parent company of <keyword id="8678883" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="moj" source="Orion">Moj</keyword>, today announced a strategic merger between Moj and MX <keyword id="7638068" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="takatak" source="Orion">TakaTak</keyword>, to create the largest short video platform for Indians, whereby the two platforms will now be controlled by ShareChat. The combined platform will have 100 million creators, over 300 million Monthly Active Users (MAU), and nearly 250 billion monthly video views. Post this transaction, MX Media and its shareholders will become strategic shareholders of ShareChat. Since its launch in July 2020, Moj has emerged as the largest Indian short video app, with over 160 million MAUs and over 50 million creator communities in the 15 Indian languages. The company has been investing heavily in social and live commerce and growing its AI/ML team which is now over 100 people strong and spread across the US, Europe, and India. MX TakaTak was launched in July 2020 and reached 150 million MAUs, across 10 languages. The platform’s deep access to content talent and understanding of the MX Media ecosystem user base has seen this high growth in a short span of time. MX TakaTak will continue to function as a separate platform for now, but the two platforms’ creator base, content supply and recommendation algorithms will be integrated. In the coming months, the experience of users and creators will converge enabling creators from both platforms to reach the most extensive set of audiences in India. This will provide users access to unique features including best-in-class camera creation tools with Snap filters, live commerce, and a vast music library. Commenting on the merger, Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and Cofounder, ShareChat &amp; Moj, said, “We at ShareChat are building India’s largest content ecosystem which has been on an unprecedented growth trajectory. MX TakaTak is a popular platform and this merger further solidifies our position in the short video ecosystem. With this development, we aim to build the largest original content platform on Moj along with the largest community of users across India.” Commenting on the partnership, Karan Bedi, CEO MX Media said, “I am excited to announce the strategic merger of India’s two most popular social media platforms. As India's largest digital entertainment platform, MX has always strived to build superior world class products, and TakaTak is no exception. This combined with Moj’s AI and execution capabilities makes the combined business a truly world class short video platform. MX has created two ‘unicorns’ within one business, unlocking significant value for our shareholders, and will now continue to double down on OTT, with significantly increased financial resources.”

ShareChat and MX Media announce a strategic merger of Moj and MX TakaTak

<ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/trendsfestival" data-type="tilCustomLink">Global Trends Festival</a> is one of the world's most prestigious events which will be live from Oct 19-23.</li><li>While nobel laureates, some of the biggest political and corporate icons will provide thought leadership, it's a great platform to network with CXOs from around the world.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/trendsfestival" data-type="tilCustomLink">Global Trends Festival 2020</a> is presented by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/trendsfestival" data-type="tilCustomLink"></a><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/" data-type="tilCustomLink">AWS</a>.</li><li>Register for the <keyword id="10088455" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="global-trends-festival">Global Trends Festival</keyword> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/trendsfestival" data-type="tilCustomLink"></a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/trendsform_2020.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">here</a>.</li></ul> In a world crowded with messaging apps, <keyword id="3395480" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Farid-Ahsan">Farid Ahsan</keyword> and his co-founders created an app used regularly by over 100 million Indians. What’s the difference between ShareChat and a thousand others? All its users speak either in Telugu, Punjabi, and even Bhojpuri -- a total of 15 Indic languages. Ahsan says that it is easy to move an elephant rather than a <a href="https://yourstory.com/2017/09/failures-iit-kanpur-graduates-sharechat-whatsapp?utm_pageloadtype=scroll">herd of sheep</a>. Instead of going after users who prefer English, they went after those who do not engage on Instagram and Twitter to create their own ‘space’ where they will not be subject to judgement for the kind of content they consume. Ahsan says that their app is a replacement for Google itself as their users barely use search applications. This sweet spot that they hit did not come as intuition or an epiphany. For a team that has been innovating since the time they were in a dorm room, the reason behind their success after 14 failures is that they used a data-based approach. The ShareChat team observed that Indian languages' engagement was much higher than what they saw in English. They soon removed English from the app, dedicating it to 'Bharat,' the millions of underserved Indians outside the English-speaking users in India, who are ambitious and aspirational. When asked why he took <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/people/farid-ahsan-sharechat-interview/articleshow/62210916.cms">this bold decision</a>, Ahsan says, "All Indians are bilingual." Apart from being a founder and a visionary of sorts, Ahsan is also an expert on 'Bharat users' - what they want, and even how they think. At the Global Trends event, Ahsan will speak on 'The Next 200 million' at a fireside chat, which will discuss the key spokes that hold e-commerce and social media together --- the enabler, the platform, and the influencer. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/trendsfestival" data-type="tilCustomLink"></a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/watch-out-for-nandini-piramal-on-breaking-barriers-and-transforming-businesses-at-the-global-trends-festival-2020/articleshow/78601109.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Watch out for Nandini Piramal on breaking barriers, and transforming businesses at the Global Trends Festival 2020</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/trendsfestival" data-type="tilCustomLink"></a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/catch-kavin-mittal-one-of-indias-youngest-billionaire-entrepreneurs-at-the-global-trends-festival-2020/articleshow/78600950.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Catch Kavin Mittal, one of India’s youngest billionaire entrepreneurs, at the Global Trends Festival 2020</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/trendsfestival" data-type="tilCustomLink"></a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/watch-sangita-reddy-president-ficci-speak-about-women-entrepreneurship-and-economic-leadership-at-the-global-trends-festival-2020/articleshow/78574587.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Watch Sangita Reddy, President, FICCI, speak about women entrepreneurship and economic leadership at the Global Trends Festival 2020</a>

Watch out for Farid Ahsan, who has a finger on the pulse of Bharat users, at the Global Trends Festival 2020

<ul><li>ShareChat has raised a total of $224 million, with the latest Series D funding of $100 million from Twitter</li><li>The platform is now looking at starting its monetization journey and is reaching out to brands that could advertise on its platform</li><li>The platform’s aim is to get every Indian on to the internet, to a social network of its choice where they can converse in a language they are comfortable in</li></ul>It’s been four years since ShareChat, India’s homegrown regional social networking platform came into being. The platform came into the limelight after it raised $100 million funding in Series-D from Twitter, bringing the total raised in funding to $224 million. The company that was founded in 2015 by CEO Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Farid Ahsan, currently has a strong user base of 60 million. It hasn’t been making any money till now, because according to Sunil Kamat, Chief Business Officer, ShareChat, the platform was in the growth-hack mode. As the platform is now starting its monetization journey, it is not only reaching out to brands to partner with them but also planning a major hiring spree. It plans to expand its team from its current strength of 250 to 400 within the next three to four months. While they haven’t put a target figure to where they want to be in the next few years, Kamath shares that for them, the priority is to get more and more people onto the internet and present them with a platform where they are comfortable conversing and sharing their opinions. Edited excerpts: Q) It’s been four years since ShareChat started its journey. How has it been so far? We came into being four years ago, before the data revolution happened. Our journey has been pretty impactful till now. Our co-founders saw a gap in the social media landscape early on and saw a large opportunity for a regional social platform, and that’s where it all began. It's good to be early in the space and we are glad to be at the forefront of change because a lot of people are now trying to mimic our platform. It's a good feeling. Q) How big is the team right now, and how do you plan to scale it up? We will be hiring a lot of talent for the company across various units. Our strength is currently at 250, which we plan to scale up to 400 in the next four months. Q) You say you aren’t chasing targets right now. What are you in it for then? One thing that India has been missing is the ability to get everybody on board. For us, it’s about getting every Indian user to be on a social network of his choice and to make him comfortable with his language. What motivates us is the thought of bringing every Indian user to the Internet and thereby help improve his quality of life over a period of time. Q) What has your revenue model been so far? Our revenue model will be ad-based. Till now, we have been completely focused on growth. However, we are not in this for the short-tem. Our aim is to become one of the largest social networks in India, which means we will be heavily acquisition-based. Now that we have acquired users, it's good to open up to partners, to reach the audience. It's good for our audience too, as they have brands coming on board that they can interact with brands. We will end up building our own journey because it's always been that way for us. We never had parallel system to look up to. But people tend to replicate ShareChat’s journey which is overwhelming. Q) While you’ve been in existence for four years, you haven’t spoken about the platform too much. How have you been reaching out to your audience? Our audience belongs to the Tier II, III and IV markets, so we come up with a lot of regional communication. It's about who you want to communicate to. If I wanted to attract the investor community, I would talk to the mainline media. We are doing a lot of work in the regional side; we work with a network where we get access to regional print, television. However, now that we are starting to monetize the platform, you will see a lot more of us. We were in this growth hack mode all these years and didn’t have too much to talk about. We were just putting our heads together, getting the product fitment right, the initial engagement metrics in place and then scaling up with the acquisition of consumers and audience retention. That journey continues. Now we are aiming at accelerating the reach for the platform, getting people to know about ShareChat and build monetization opportunities for the platform, to see how we can get brands to engage with audiences because it’s a fairly new audience for them as well. Q) You have seen good growth in terms of your consumer base. What have you done right? As a platform, we are very data and insights driven. Since we are a User Generated Content platform, our consumers create content for other users to consume. So, a lot of our learning comes from our users. We see people behaving in a certain manner and modify our platform according to the needs of our consumers. We have a comment section on the platform where we observed people started asking for each other’s numbers and other details. Seeing this, we enabled a chat feature. We also observe the kind of content people are consuming on the platform. Sometimes, a nicely edited content might necessarily not do as well as another piece of normal content that people connect better with. So, these are the insights which we pick up. We unlearn and learn again and that's what keeps us going. Q) Going ahead, what will be your marketing strategy? A lot of our marketing will be focused on driving engagement for consumer on content. We will focus on encouraging consumers to use our camera feature. On the other side, we want to build monetization through brands and marketing channels. Q) Have you seen a lot of interest from marketers? We are still at a very early stage because we are just starting that journey now. I have met top FMCG brands and had amazing conversations. They are the ones who are giving us ideas about how they can use the platform. This is probably the first time that brands will have the ability to put up ads in 14-15 languages on a single platform. It's a challenge and an opportunity at the same time because I don't think digital agencies are equipped to run campaigns in more than a few languages. Q) Are you planning to expand to more languages? As a country, we have 22 official languages. We would love to evaluate a language on the basis of what it brings to the table, whether there’s a significant upside of that language. We have also done dialects like Rajasthani, Haryanvi and Bhojpuri because we are a very visual platform in terms of content. We recently brought in Urdu too. We are currently building a team of people who would be well-versed in these languages too, to be able to help consumers. We have teams for various languages and each of them has learning of their own language. What works in 'A' might not work in 'B' but could work in 'C'. So, they work independently, but there is a lot of common understanding of engaging content. Q) With this new round of funding coming in, what will your key focus areas be? The new round of funding hasn’t changed things much at our end. It's more of a financial transaction at this stage but with every round you raise, you become more responsible, towards your shareholders, and investors. So, we really have to make sure that we have very good stories.

ShareChat is growing its team from 250 to 400 as it moves to monetize its 60 million user base

New Delhi, Mar 12 () Regional language social media platform ShareChat has seen a 15 per cent increase in daily average users and rise in content shared on topics like news, health and devotion on its platform amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Bengaluru-based company, which has about 60 million monthly active users (MAUs), has also stepped up efforts to weed out misinformation around COVID-19 to ensure safety of users. "We have seen a phenomenal growth in both content creation and engagement during lockdown. New gainers for us are categories like news, health and devotion," ShareChat CBO Sunil Kamath told . While he did not disclose exact numbers, Kamath said ShareChat's daily average users have increased by 15 per cent and session log in duration has gone up by 20 per cent. "The user generated content (UGC) has also increased from an average 8 lakh posts a day in week 1 to about 9.5 lakh three weeks later, a 18.75 per cent rise," he said. More than 2 lakh posts were coronavirus-related, he added. Besides, video consumption has also increased by 15 per cent from approximately 23 billion video plays previously, he said. Categories like news are now seeing about 65,000 posts being created a day, while health and devotion are seeing 24,000 and 80,000 posts being generated daily on the platform, respectively. Kamath noted that fighting fake news is a focus area for ShareChat. He explained that ShareChat has multiple third party fact checkers reviewing content across 13 languages to ensure removal from trending feeds of any content that is found to be factually inaccurate, and debunking conspiracy theories, fake news and misinformation campaigns. The platform has also instituted algorithmic changes to ensure the trending feed on the platform does not display any content that has been marked by fact checkers to have content that is verifiably found to be untrue by third party fact checkers. "We have also ensured a trending tag is displayed at launch which would provide users with the latest official updates from MoHFW," he said. Besides, ShareChat has also launched a chatbot on the app, in partnership with All_IN_Call, for addressing user queries around COVID–19 with authentic information from various government and global health sources within the app. According to App Annie, Sharechat clocked 14 million daily average users between August 2019 and January 2020. SR RVK

ShareChat sees 15 pc increase in daily average users during lockdown

New Delhi, Dec 25 () Regional language social media company ShareChat on Wednesday said over 100 million pieces of Hindi user-generated content (UGC) have been created on its platform this year, accounting for over 22 per cent of such content.
Other top languages in which UGC was created on the platform - which claims to have over 60 million monthly active users - includes content in Tamil, Telegu, Punjabi and Malayalam.
"Hindi is the top language based on UGC creation on our platform this year. National and regional brands have also started getting attracted and are already driving campaigns on the platform in Hindi language as we are best placed to provide them the desired scale and engagement," ShareChat CBO Sunil Kamath said.
He added that there are an estimated six lakh creators working on Hindi content on the platform.
"Apart from content creation, there is also an extremely high engagement. We saw 1.98 billion WhatsApp shares of Hindi content, and over 100 million hours of short form Hindi videos were played on ShareChat in 2019," Kamath said.
He noted that maximum content posts in Hindi are coming from cities like Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Jabalpur, Patna and Lucknow.
Kamath pointed out that given this trend, brands are also using Hindi and other vernacular languages to connect and drive unique brand experiences amongst its target audience through micro influencers strategy.
"Brands are using our platform to connect and interact in native languages with users across the country. We are working with them to craft effective storytelling and drive deeper engagement and experiences that will be closer to the heart of their audiences," he added. SR KPM BAL
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Users created over 100 mn pieces of Hindi content in 2019: ShareChat

<ul><li>India’s home-grown social network ShareChat is looking for its next round of investment, and Google may reportedly shell out $150 million to $200 million. </li><li>Even <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> has expressed its interest in ShareChat while chasing <keyword id="6762469" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="TikTok">TikTok</keyword>’s operations in the US. </li><li>Here’s why analysts think it makes sense that Google is looking to ShareChat in order to fill the gaps in its portfolio. </li></ul>Global tech giants are on the hunt for the next big social network. Facebook has rolled out Instagram Reels and Microsoft is looking to get its hands on the real deal by acquiring TikTok’s US business. Meanwhile, in India, Google is trying to finally get a piece of pie by investing in the country’s home-grown social networking platform, ShareChat. Neither Google nor ShareChat have commented on the <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/google-in-talks-with-sharechat-as-latter-scouts-for-150-200-million/articleshow/77582440.cms">Economic Times</a> article, which claims that the companies are in the preliminary stages of negotiating an investment between $150 to $200 million. Nonetheless, analysts believe that Google’s interest in the local-language network will fill in the missing pieces it has in its portfolio. “It’s very well possible that ShareChat will eventually get rebranded as something else for global markets,” founder and CEO of Greyhound Research, Sanchit Vir Gogia told Business Insider. What is ShareChat? ShareChat is a social networking platform, which, within itself, has a TikTok alternative — called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/sharechats-tiktok-rival-moj-crosses-5mn-downloads-on-google-play/articleshow/76811384.cms">Moj</a> — that has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/sharechat-rides-on-the-ban-on-apps-from-china-with-15-million-downloads-in-36-hours-but-is-itself-backed-by-chinese-investors/articleshow/76728139.cms">gained traction</a> since the ban on Chinese apps was announced in India. “This will enable Google to have a shot at its social networking ambitions but as of now, we see it as a strategic investment if it happens,” said counterpoint analyst Tarun Pathak. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="77062280" title="Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Sharechat see substantial increase in time-spent after the ban on Chinese apps: Kantar" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div> The investment would not just give Google an opportunity to make headway in the social networking game, but also allow it to leverage ShareChat’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/users-created-over-100-mn-pieces-of-hindi-content-in-2019-sharechat/articleshow/72965102.cms">vernacular content</a>. It already lost out to Facebook in the west. ShareChat could provide the tech company its second coming. The Indian social network is currently the fastest growing local language social media platform in India with support for 14 Indian languages and more than 60 million active users. It’s one of the reasons that even Microsoft is <a href="https://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/microsoft-in-prelim-talks-with-sharechat-indian-app-for-100-million-dollars-investment/story/412337.html">reportedly</a> looking to buy it even though it already has a monopoly in the professional networking space with LinkedIn. For ShareChat, an investment from Google would mean an investment by the ‘king of search engine optimisation’ (SEO), he explained. Brands pump in money where searchability is best — the more searchable a platform’s content is, the more likely it is to go viral. TikTok set the tone for social networks to travel from East to West The success of TikTok is only one case study on how the next big global social network won’t start out in the US or Europe but in Asia. But an app that’s popular in India will have a lot of users while being unable to general a lot of money. Indian users are diverse but they don’t like to spend online. “India is not a very high revenue market right now but it is a great testbed market from features, functionality and languages perspective,” said Gogia. Even with TikTok, one-third of its users were from India but the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/tiktok-made-more-money-than-any-other-app-in-july-despite-losing-its-largest-overseas-market/articleshow/77369131.cms">majority of its revenue was still from China.</a> Test local, make money global Many companies like Microsoft and Google already test drive their products in India and other countries before taking them to the US. According to Gogia, Google’s interest in ShareChat could very well be an attempt to drive innovation from a low-risk country and take it across broader global networks. If you look at it from Google’s point of view, it will be able to use the abundance of data to train its algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) models in a very big way. “These models can then be taken into other countries from a monetisation perspective,” explained Gogia. Investing in ShareChat fits in perfectly with Google wanting a piece of the pie in India’s rising digital adoption. “This will give them rich insights on how the next half a billion first time internet users will embrace the internet and help in tweaking their services accordingly and not to forget the indirect benefits to their core advertisement segment,” said Pathak. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/the-heat-is-on-mark-zuckerberg-in-india-as-facebook-and-whatsapp-incur-the-ire-of-modis-rivals/articleshow/77575358.cms">The heat is on Mark Zuckerberg in India as Facebook and WhatsApp incur the ire of Modi's rivals</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/not-only-gmail-google-drive-meet-slides-docs-sites-groups-chat-keep-voice-services-also-facing-issue-as-per-google/articleshow/77652103.cms">Google Drive, Docs, Meet and others are working again after being out of service for over six hours</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/microsoft-is-ending-support-for-the-legacy-internet-explorer-but-its-only-going-to-affect-less-than-5-of-online-users/articleshow/77607727.cms">Microsoft is ending support for the legacy Internet Explorer — but it's only going to affect less than 5% of online users</a>

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Bharat users are as affluent and digitally savvy as India users: ShareChat and GroupM report

BI India Partner

ShareChat to acquire short video platform MX TakaTak for around ₹4,500 crore

IANS

ShareChat and MX Media announce a strategic merger of Moj and MX TakaTak

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Watch out for Farid Ahsan, who has a finger on the pulse of Bharat users, at the Global Trends Festival 2020

BI India Bureau

ShareChat is growing its team from 250 to 400 as it moves to monetize its 60 million user base

Samarpita Banerjee

ShareChat sees 15 pc increase in daily average users during lockdown

PTI

Users created over 100 mn pieces of Hindi content in 2019: ShareChat

PTI

Google eyes India’s ShareChat as Microsoft goes after TikTok in the US — here’s why it makes sense

Prabhjote Gill

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