Bangkok India’s social media influencers live in their own world. Instead of distributing their viral short videos via the globally booming Tiktok platform, they upload their material to apps that are almost unknown outside of the subcontinent. The providers are called MX Takatak, Roposo, Josh and Moj – meaningless abroad, but with hundreds of millions of users, they are among the most coveted start-ups in their home market.
The Indian Tiktok rivals owe their success neither to particularly innovative technology nor to sophisticated marketing. The main factor in their rise is the government in New Delhi, which has cleared the market for them – with a ban on their main competitor.
Tiktok, owned by Chinese group Bytedance, is one of more than 340 Chinese apps that have been banned in India – including apps like WeChat and popular game PUBG Mobile, both owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent.
For two years, Indian authorities have been consistently taking action against the smartphone applications from the People’s Republic. They justify this by saying that the providers are allegedly sending unauthorized data from Indian users to Beijing. The fact that the companies concerned vehemently denied the accusation has not helped them to find a way back into the important growth market.
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Instead of enabling a peaceful co-existence between domestic tech companies and Chinese competitors, India’s authorities are now doing more: After the software from China, they now also want to sell Chinese hardware from their market.
India is thus daring an experiment that, given the increasing geopolitical tensions with China, is likely to arouse great interest in Europe and America as well. The question is: Can a country get by without China’s tech companies?
Chinese smartphone manufacturers targeted
After Bytedance, Tencent, Alibaba and Co., the Indians are now targeting smartphone manufacturers from China, which are extremely popular in India – including Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo. There is no direct ban for them yet. However, the Indian leadership makes it unmistakably clear that the companies – at least with their previous business practices – are no longer welcome.
Chinese manufacturers have been the focus of Indian investigative authorities for several months. They are suspected of money laundering and tax evasion, among other things – the companies deny any wrongdoing. In the case of Xiaomi, the authorities froze almost half a billion dollars in bank balances earlier this year. The Shenzhen group, which is the market leader in India, accuses the authorities of coercion.
Now it’s going to get even harder for the company: India’s authorities have decided to push the Chinese manufacturers completely off their smartphone thrones, as several media reported unanimously this week. According to this, the government sees no more room for the corporations from the People’s Republic in the category of cheap smartphones with a price of up to 150 dollars – so far this segment has been an immensely important growth guarantor for Xiaomi and Co.
The Chinese smartphone manufacturers are a thorn in the side of the Indian government.
(Photo: AP)
It is not yet known how India intends to get rid of the manufacturers. Most likely, new regulations are in place, leaving companies little choice but to opt out voluntarily. What is clear, however, is what India is aiming for with this step: The country harbors a deep distrust of the government in Beijing, which grew even further after a violent escalation of a border dispute in the Himalayas two years ago.
The government therefore wants to push back as far as possible the massive Chinese influence on India’s technology industry, which could pose a serious security problem in the event of a conflict. At the same time, she hopes to set up local tech companies to fill the gaps after the Chinese companies have withdrawn. In the case of Tiktok, this has already been achieved. When it comes to smartphones, Indian manufacturers such as Micromax and Lava are in the starting blocks.
However, the exclusion of Chinese providers will not be easy: Smartphone supply chains cannot be copied as easily as a video app. And whether India can easily do without the investments of Chinese manufacturers – who have recently significantly expanded their production in the country – remains to be seen. But for countries wanting to know what technological decoupling from China looks like in practice, India will provide important illustrative material.
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