Happy Friday!
Thanks to the lockdown, urban India is glued to TikTok. Some users are posting goofy videos while confined in their homes.
No more ‘cringe-worthy’
Until recently, a section of online users frowned upon TikTok’s content and labelled it “cringe-worthy” even as users from tier-II and -III cities gained rewards and recognition through the platform, turning India into the biggest market for the Chinese video-sharing social network.
What changed
One of the reasons TikTok has been able to catch on with India’s social media elite is because of a surge in its visibility on other popular platforms.
App Annie report released earlier this April said that TikTok was the most downloaded app in India in the social media category as the country went into lockdown. As of March 12, the app had an estimated 500 million downloads in India as against 180 million in China and 120 million in the US, according to a Sensor Tower report. Read more.
Deals counter may buzz louder
Mergers and acquisitions are likely to see significant uptick in India’s startup world over the next 3-6 months, as companies and investors gear up for a year starved of capital and revenue due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Consolidation is high on the wish list of venture capital investors as they look to ruthlessly trim portfolios at a time when even their own ability to raise money from Limited Partners has hit a roadblock.
Much of the buyouts will take place in India’s consumer internet, retail and financial services sectors, according to bankers, investors and founders. A significant number of these are expected to be stock-led deals, distress sales and acquihires. Read more.
Startups back Aarogya Setu
Food delivery platforms Swiggy and Zomato, online services marketplace Urban Company and e-grocer Grofers have asked frontline staff to mandatorily use the government’s Aarogya Setu contact tracing app, while e-commerce heavyweights Amazon and Flipkart have also recommended that their workers do the same.
Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Zomato, said on microblogging platform Twitter that if delivery partners install the app on their phones, that would give its users “confidence” to order essentials home.
Privacy concerns
Privacy and cyber security experts said the app can only be used for contact tracing and does not indicate whether a person is a carrier of the virus or not. Read more.
Jio-Facebook data issues
Facebook could find itself sparring with Reliance Jio in policy debates over how data is collected, stored and shared in India, as the two technology giants differ markedly in their stance on these issues.
The social media giant, which is paying $5.7 billion for a minority stake in the digital arm of India’s largest conglomerate, has opposed the Centre’s demand that data of Indians be stored locally. Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, on the other hand, has been unequivocal that data of citizens must be controlled and owned by Indians, and not foreign corporations.
Their views also diverge sharply on the matter of providing access to private social media data to law enforcement authorities. Read more.
Amazon woos brick-and-mortar retailers
Amazon India said it was growing its ‘Local Shops on Amazon’ initiative to enable offline stores to do more business through their platform.
The Jeff Bezos-owned e-commerce giant expects more brick-and-mortar stores to leverage the online marketplace as they rejig their models once the country is back up after the Covid-19 induced lockdown.
Amazon said that it had already signed up over 5,000 offline shops, including large retailers such as Tata’s Croma, as sellers on its platform. Read more.
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