Josh benefits from ‘techno-nationalism’ | WARC | The Feed

Josh benefits from ‘techno-nationalism’

TikTok was a high-profile casualty of India’s ban on, now, more than 200 tech services originating from China, but local versions of the short-video app have quickly attracted many users and significant financial backing.

The Josh story 

• Josh is one of several platforms that sprang up in the days after TikTok was banned in 2020 (others include Roposo, Moj and MX TaktaTak).
• It quickly gained legitimacy by bringing on board former TikTok influencers with paid contracts and by running creator workshops in smaller towns across the country.
• While Instagram is India’s most popular social media app, Josh’s founder believes the big US platforms aren’t adequately serving users beyond the metros. 
• Josh claims more than 150 million monthly active users, has raised $805m from investors and is valued at $5 billion, Bloomberg reports. 
• Josh is nothing if not ambitious: with more Indians coming online, almost one billion are expected to be watching short-form videos within the next three years and it hopes to capture half of that number.

Key quote

“We run Indian-language content factories. The Silicon Valley companies have missed this learning” – Virendra Gupta, co-founder of VerSe Innovation.

Sourced from Boomberg