Another ‘swadeshi’ moment attracts Indian tech platforms, which are again in the news. There is a renewed emphasis on Indian apps as an alternative to global platforms. While there might be reason to view a similar wave from a few years ago as a warning, the founders emphasize that home apps are now benefiting from better underlying technology. Analysts point to data sovereignty concerns and a better understanding of how to break up big tech monopolies. Practical matters should be the starting point on the road to real adoption, not a fork in the road.
The focus was again on homegrown apps after the Indian government started adopting the services of Chennai-based Zoho Corp. On September 22, Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnav posted on Twitter, “I am moving to Zoho, our own indigenous platform for documents, spreadsheets and presentations.” Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal wrote on September 29, “Extremely proud to be on Aratai, the made-in-India messaging platform that brings India closer.” On October 8, Union Home Minister Amit Shah posted, “I have switched to Zoho Mail”.
India’s revived interest in home-grown digital options is not born solely out of nostalgia or nationalistic sentiment, although these sentiments certainly provide fuel. This push is rooted in three interconnected strategic concerns – data sovereignty, economic freedom and geopolitical resilience. In the technological sector, monopoly can also be pointed out. In India, Google’s Android and Chrome, Meta’s WhatsApp and Elon Musk’s X are examples of market share and indeed habit dominance.
“In today’s digital economy, winner-take-all dynamics dominate. Yet, there is no permanence in the market pistons – stagnation invites disruption, and innovation always gives rise to new challengers. The renewed push for Indian apps comes from opportunity as well as policy and geopolitics,” Prabhu Ram, vice president of the Industry Research Group (IRG) at Cybermedia Research (CMR), told HT in a conversation with Takes shape.
Ram says data sovereignty and privacy concerns have increased as India tightens national security provisions, which also pushes ministries to adopt local platforms. In case of global geopolitical tensions, a nation’s infrastructure that depends on foreign foundations faces the risk of exposure or instability.
India’s concerns include questions of data sovereignty – who owns the data of Indian users. A government that has built sophisticated and scalable digital public infrastructure like UPI (Unified Payments Interface) sees an opportunity to extend this localization model to everyday consumer and enterprise applications.
Consumers and enterprises, at the same table?
This time, the Made in India app push is not just the interaction with consumers at one end, but also covers businesses and enterprises. Zoho’s Mail, Writer, and Show apps, for example, will attract businesses with specific subscription plans for Teams. For example, Zoho Mail is priced at Rs 99 per user per month with Office Suite bundle. It competes with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.
“We could see businesses migrating to Zoho Mail if it offers similar experience and features. Perhaps the government could also consider offering a waiver or introducing reimbursement for a few years for users using the Indian technology to add monetary benefits to this shift,” Faisal Kawoosa, principal analyst at research firm Techark, told HT.
When it comes to enterprise deployments, an inevitable question that goes far beyond patriotism is about data security and encryption. At this time, some of Zoho’s services do not have end to end encryption, also known as E2E. Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and chief scientist at Zoho Corporation, writes on social media, “End to end encryption is a technology feature and it is coming. Trust is more valuable and we are earning that trust every day in the global market.”
When pressed further by another user, he explained, “The data is stored in encrypted disk storage, like a cloud service. No employee has access to it. When end-to-end encryption is rolled out, that cloud storage will be deleted. It will only remain on the device.”
The companies Zoho wants to pursue, Microsoft and Google, both offer different methods of encryption. Microsoft offers end-to-end encryption managed by Microsoft’s infrastructure, while Google deploys CSE, or client-side encryption that gives an organization direct control over the encryption keys. This is an example of why Indian tech companies must still move fast.
headed for success
MapmyIndia, an Indian navigation company founded in 1995, launched online maps in 2004, a year before Google Maps in many countries. It’s been a battle of perseverance for Rohan Verma, director of MapMyIndia, as the company fought Google’s monopoly on Android (an inevitable push for its own Maps app over anything from other developers), but also a navigational portfolio that includes mapping data, solutions for businesses, navigation systems pre-loaded in cars, APIs or Includes application programming layer to work with platforms like Alexa, AI tools, and analytics.
Their Maples app for Android and iOS which has gained popularity in recent years finds itself in the headlines again. This app has real advantages, including 3D navigation with precise lane guidance and integrating DIGIPIN, India’s digital addressing system, which assigns a unique 10-character alphanumeric code to each 4m x 4m location block on the map.
“Due to the active suppression of these foreign big technologies, there has been a problem in the adoption of indigenous technology,” Verma said in a social media post. The issue of Maples being held back by monopoly is playing out in courts around the world, with big tech companies being fined for anti-competitive behavior. To give domestic platforms a chance to grow, he draws parallels with the Chinese model. Verma says, “In terms of technology, like anything, the more it is used, the better the feedback loop becomes. China became good at manufacturing and technology because the Chinese as a nation resolved to use their indigenous technology, which gave them the opportunity to improve.”
India’s consumer-centric tech success stories include instant commerce and food delivery platforms. Case in point, the duopoly of Zomato and Swiggy, which is proving difficult for other platforms to surpass, let alone compete with. For example, despite its e-commerce footprint, Amazon has not yet established its foothold in the instant commerce sector.
The next layer of competition comes from companies like PhonePe which sees its pincode instant commerce service gaining popularity. Another success story from PhonePe is the Indus Appstore, which is now installed on 100 million smartphones and is challenging the dominance of Google’s Play Store as the default app marketplace on millions of Android phones.
Priya M Narasimhan, Chief Business Officer, Indus Appstore, says, “Crossing the 10 crore mark is a proud moment for all of us, and it is an important step in our journey to build a horizontal app store for India. We will continue to support the developer ecosystem by providing a level playing field that allows them to reach and deliver to the right users with features built for the Indian regional and cultural context. Is.”
Not all are success stories
Many apps have tried to replace WhatsApp as the default messaging app for millions of users, and none have succeeded. If ever there was a definition of steadfast habits, this would be it. Signal and Telegram have emphasized data security and encryption in recent years to lure users away from Meta-owned messaging apps. He got very little success.
Further perspective comes from the failed efforts of the Hike messaging app (it closed in 2021), funded by Tencent, SoftBank and Tiger Global Management, as well as the Koo social media app, which shut down last summer – it was backed by a mix of venture capital firms including Tiger Global Management, Accel and 3one4 Capital, as well as Naval Ravikant, Virat Kohli, Tiger Shroff and was funded by major investors. Shraddha Kapoor.
“A cautionary tale is instructive. Earlier Indian apps like Koo and Hike had shown that early hype does not guarantee scale – network effects and user inertia proved insurmountable,” explains CMR’s Ram.
According to the latest data from online research firm Business of Apps, WhatsApp currently commands 59.04% share of India’s messaging app market, followed by Snapchat (19.72%) and Telegram (9.17%). It is this dominance that Zoho’s Aratai messaging app aims to break. After pressure from the government, a positive movement has taken place. Aratai downloads in India grew from less than 10,000 in August 2025 to nearly 400,000 in September, according to data from Market Intelligence and Sensor Tower.
ArattaiIn Tamil, means informal conversation or gossip. As another challenge to WhatsApp’s dominance looms, two schools of thought are emerging.
“What has changed now is the convergence of strong enterprise anchors like Zoho’s SMB (small and medium business) network, a clear privacy-first and data-sovereign positioning, and regulatory tailwinds favoring actively in-house solutions. These factors collectively improve the odds compared to previous efforts, but the playbook still requires patience, flexibility, and constant iteration,” says Ram.
Kawoosa explains, “I’m not sure whether Arratai can make any significant impact or not, but yes have seen some additional features like letting you schedule calls which gives users a value-added reason to do it other than patriotic calls.”
For those platforms still on the way, the struggle to keep going is as real as finding funding. For example, ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce), which has participation from 357 seller, buyer and logistics platforms including Ola, Tata New, Delhivery, Flipkart, Magicpin and MapMyIndia, has not been able to match the dominance of Zomato and Swiggy in recent months.
This example may be an indication that government support can only do so much toward creating awareness and accelerating adoption. It will be imperative to evolve, iterate technology platforms and for this, deep pockets and unique features may be crucial.
Vembu Knows that playbook better than anyone. “We can say with confidence that we will continue to invest in R&D and we will continue to expand the infrastructure. Improving technology is important for us and the country, and we will continue in this direction,” he says with hope that Aratai can go far beyond the initial enthusiasm.
A question worth asking is why India, which was the backbone of Information Technology (IT) in the 90s, including Infosys, Wipro and TCS, started adopting technology from other countries? More than the actual answer, course correction can take a lot of time.
