Govt of India banned 59 Chinese mobile applications to tackle the threats posed by such applications to the country. During the press release on Monday, a government official said that such applications were said to hurt the “sovereignty and security” of the nation. Some of the top mobile applications like Tik Tok, WeChat, and Helo which were widely popular among the Indians were present on the list. UC browser, ShareIT, Club Factory, etc. are other some of the popular Chinese apps which lost its market in India resulting the ban.
As per Govt. of India, the ban has been imposed under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Under this Act, Government has the “Power to issue directions for blocking for public access of any information through any computer resource”. Government has claimed that the apps banned under the Act have been engaged in activities which are “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of state and public order.” It has been said that some of these banned mobile applications have been doing well in India in terms of revenue as well as by having people on payrolls.
Let’s now take a look at some of the Chinese mobile apps which have been banned in India.
Both these mobile applications come from a Chinese-based company named Bytedance Technology Pvt Ltd and in India they together enjoy to have more than 170 million active users. When we talk about Tik Tok, it alone is said to have made more than 611 million downloads in India and this number itself means a third of user contribution for the app in India, following the numbers in China and the US.
The IT Ministry of India is expected to get detailed information about these companies to confirm whether under the Chinese law the apps are sharing data to the government which is actually required of them. Based on this law, the companies are expected to share data with the intelligence agencies of China irrespective of their country of operation.
When we are talking about the popular file-sharing tools in the market then ShareIt is definitely one of them and in India, there are more than 400 million active users . The app is said to be having more than 1.8 billion users around the world. The ShareIt Technology India Pvt Ltd only made around Rs 14.73 crore in the financial year 2018-2019 in its Indian market. If we look at the percentage, the Indian market contributes to its 15-20% of revenue. The Hong Kong-based company named ShareIt HK Technology Ltd owns 99.99% of the business entity.
UCWeb Mobile Pvt Ltd is the name of the entity which is run by the Alibaba Group platforms and it is said that they are enjoying more than 130 million active users currently. Right after Google, UC Browser is the second most popular internet browser for mobile applications and has a market share of 22% while Google’s Chrome enjoys a 70% share. UCWeb Mobile has less than a hundred employees in India and in the year 2018-2019, they recorded revenue of Rs 226.68 crore and they made this income from advertising mainly.
Club Factory is the third-largest eCommerce platform which has helped 30,000 sellers to get on board. A Hong Kong-based company named Unbeaten Price Ltd owns 99.99% of the Indian concern named GlobeMax Commerce India Pvt Ltd. The Indian part made Rs 172.14 crore of revenue in the year 2018-2019 and has below 100 employees in India.
CamScanner is a mobile scanning app that is widely used across the globe. In India itself there are more than 100 million users for the app. The app has no entity registered in India and the main firm is registered in Shanghai, China under INTSIG Information Co Ltd.
Shein is an eCommerce store that is mobile-based and is known for fashion and lifestyle products. The company is China-based and has its wing running in India under the entity XIYIN India Pvt Ltd. The company has more than 1 million active users in India before it shut down its activities in the country last year.
The list of banned apps continuous and it includes the one like MI Community and Mi Video Call for Xiaomi phones, to Viva Video for Vivo phones. The mobile applications fall under different categories like gaming, Utility, social content sharing platforms, video and live streaming, entertainment and engagement apps, eCommerce, and web browser.
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