Homegrown TikTok rival Chingari on fire

Chingari, a made-in-India alternative to the hugely popular short form video app TikTok, has seen a massive spurt in downloads and active users over the last 24 hours after the Indian government banned TikTok and several other Chinese apps over security concerns.

“We were experiencing 50,000 downloads per hour earlier, and suddenly, after the news (of TikTok ban) broke, the number jumped to 100,000 downloads per hour,” said Sumit Ghosh, cofounder and chief product officer of Chingari. “We weren’t expecting a ban, it was like a sixer on the last ball,” he told ET.

The app recorded one million downloads in two days after crossing 2.5 million mark on Sunday, Ghosh said. “We surpassed 3.5 million today and are expecting another million by the end of the day. I am hopeful that we will cross the 5 million-mark in the next 48-72 hours easily.”