How Chinese apps still exist in India even after being banned

There are many mobile applications that were banned by India in recent years due to security concerns. They are being supported by global technology giants. According to the report of ET, they are working in India. Last week, the Center banned 54 Chinese apps, which were considered as avatars of the apps that were removed earlier in 2020. When the government had closed about 224 apps. Which included popular apps like Tiktok, Shareit, WeChat, Helo, Like, UC News, Bigo Live, UC Browser, ES File Explorer and Mi Community.

“Many of these apps have relaunched themselves with sounding names or re-branded with similar functions and have so far managed to evade scrutiny.” Indian internet market is a huge attraction for the world. There are about 700 million users here.

For example, Bigo Live, one of the first apps to be banned, continues to work with a large number of users in India, although the popular app is not available for download on the Google PlayStore.

Sources related to the matter said that many employees of Likee and Bigo have been transferred to new organizations like Tiki mobile app, which is a Likee clone. The app, which is a platform for short videos, has over 50 million downloads on the Play Store.

According to the co-founder of mobile internet technology company Appihai, “The general modus operandi of these Chinese apps is to show that they operate from different countries, such as the US, India or Singapore.

ByteDance clones
Shortly before the shuttering of its flagship offering, TikTok, which gained immense popularity in India, ByteDance shut down the Vigo video app, while another offering from its stable-halo- also pulled out of the Indian market. However, Byte Dance still runs the editing app CapCut in India, which has over 10 million downloads on the Play Store.

Escape scrutiny
Also slipping are utility apps such as the widely used Inshot, which is headquartered in China and runs entities such as YouCut, while others such as Wondershare-owned FilmoraGo which are still available and operational in India. Hindustan News Hub