Scrolling short videos has become a hobby for many as the rise of TikTok in India. People enjoy watching funny, relatable and dancing short videos on this particular app named Tiktok and due to several controversies, the app has been banned in India. Native players for short videos due to TikTok’s ban in India, ShareChat’s Moj, MX Player-owned TakaTak, and DailyHunt’s Josh have all made early gains, according to SimilarWeb data that compiles online traffic statistics and analytics.

Shortly after India banned TikTok, Indian apps like Moj, Josh and Sharechat saw a surge in downloads and people gave their full support to start making relatable videos in the Indian app only, propelling it to become the country’s most popular social media app and surpassing TikTok in global downloads by the fourth quarter of 2021.

Indian Short Video Apps that rose to popularity After TikTok Ban

1. Sharechat 

Similar to other social networking sites, ShareChat enables its users to produce, find, and exchange content. Users of Sharechat can also follow other users on the same platform, be it friends, fellow content creators, or anyone else they find interesting, and follow their updates regularly. In addition to being enthusiastic about consuming the content that they come across on ShareChat, users are also actively involved in its creation. 

2. Moj 

Moj is a feature-rich online video-sharing platform available in India. Special effects, emoticons, stickers, and 15- to 1-minute-long short films in categories like dancing, singing, acting, comedy, and education are all included.

With 59 Chinese apps, including Bytedance’s TikTok and Helo, banned by the government on July 1 due to purported threats to the nation’s “sovereignty and security,” all of these short-video platforms are vying for a share of the estimated 100–120 million daily active users market. The apps included, among other things, UC Browser, Club Factory, SHAREit, and popular social media platforms.

How do YouTube and Instagram leverage this existing user base of short Videos? 

In recent years short videos have become extremely popular ignoring other short video platforms like Moj, Takatak, and share chat, the most popular social media YouTube and Instagram have taken the place at the top, in the priority lists of users. Watching reels on Instagram and shorts on YouTube is famous among every generation in India.   

YouTube 

YouTube’s answer to the growing demand for short-form video content was the September 2020 launch of YouTube Shorts. Being a Google subsidiary, Shorts benefits from YouTube’s vast user base and resources, which makes it a strong competitor in the short-form video market.

Opportunities for Monetization: YouTube Shorts’ integration with YouTube’s more extensive monetization features is a major benefit. With the help of the YouTube Partner Program, content producers can monetize their work by running advertisements, selling memberships, and offering Super Chat during live streams.

Broad Audience Reach: YouTube offers a massive audience for Shorts creators, with over 2 billion monthly logged-in users. Those who want to maximise their visibility and grow their following quickly may find this built-in user base beneficial.

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Instagram 

In August 2020, Instagram introduced Instagram Reels, a feature that sits inside the Instagram app and directly challenges TikTok. Reels, which makes use of Instagram’s enormous user base, has emerged as the preferred platform for brief but interesting videos.

With over 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram is a popular app, and Reels fits right in with it. This implies that users won’t need to download any additional software to view your Reels on a large scale. Customers can see Reel content from accounts they follow and even recommended accounts by just scrolling through their feed; this is as close to TikTok’s “For You Page” on Instagram as it gets.

Instagram Reels provides a range of artistic tools, such as text options, music, and augmented reality effects. This enables producers to infuse their style into videos, giving them a visually appealing and captivating quality.

Bottom line 

Shorts and Reels are being considered by both YouTube and Instagram as viable TikTok substitutes. Before releasing them globally, they tested these features in India following the ban on TikTok in that nation. In 2020, a YouGov India survey asked which social media platform Indian users and content creators would prefer over TikTok. The winner was Instagram.

Many TikTok imitators, such as Josh, Roposo, and Moj, have appeared in India with varying degrees of success; however, due to Instagram and YouTube’s widespread user base, many creators have chosen to utilise it instead. These apps seem to crush apps like Moj, Share Chat and Takatak. Instagram’s reel and YouTube shorts algorithm-driven, infinitely scrolling vertical video feed that resembles TikTok’s For You Page and other TikTok knockoffs.