Zoho’s home-grown messaging app Arattai, which is designed as a privacy-first alternative to WhatsApp, has drawn attention in a manner few domestic digital products have. Within just three days, daily sign-ups jumped from around 3,000 to nearly 350,000, on the back of high-profile endorsements by Union Cabinet ministers and social media chatter. Quietly launched in beta mode in early 2021, Arattai now finds itself at the centre of the recurring quest for digital sovereignty and credible native alternatives to global platforms. The app’s appeal rests on Zoho’s tested philosophy of building for scale, efficiency, and privacy. Unlike many hurried ventures, Arattai has been engineered to work not just on flagship smartphones but also on low-end devices and patchy networks. Its focus on local data storage and an ad-free, spyware-free experience provides a differentiator at a time when concerns about surveillance and monetisation loom large. Founder Sridhar Vembu’s admission that infrastructure is being upgraded “on an emergency basis” underscores not only the unexpected intensity of demand but also a genuine product-market fit.
But history urges caution. Several home-grown platforms like Hike Messenger, Koo, and others, enjoyed initial surges only to fade. Hike, celebrated once as the country’s answer to WhatsApp, never overcame the challenge of scale and engagement, shutting down its core messaging service in 2021. Koo, styled as a local language alternative to Twitter, enjoyed its moment when ministers and celebrities embraced it amid regulatory disputes. Yet its trajectory revealed the limits of such positioning. As marketing scholars Al Ries and Jack Trout argued decades ago, me-too products seldom work—it is better to be first in a category than to convince users you are a better version of something they already know.
Long-Term Test
That lesson is relevant even now. Arattai’s challenge is not simply to ride a viral wave but to avoid the trap of being seen as a WhatsApp clone. If it is to succeed, it must carve out its own space in the digital landscape. Here lies the real test, whether it can create a category where it is first in the mind of users, rather than competing head-to-head with an entrenched global giant. WhatsApp’s success, whether in India or globally, is rooted not only in messaging but also in its integration with payments, business communication, family groups, and media sharing. For Arattai to endure, it must build such breadth too, along with its promise of privacy and ad-free values. That requires deep investment, product innovation, and partnerships that past home-grown ventures underestimated.
Sustaining Growth
Thus, the broader lesson is that political patronage can lead to initial adoption but cannot sustain it. Koo’s rise and fall showed the limitations of muscular nationalism in consumer tech. True digital sovereignty will not come from symbolic endorsements but from products that users trust, value, and return to daily. Zoho’s patient approach and proven track record mark Arattai as different from past experiments. Unlike venture-backed start-ups chasing quick exits, Zoho is known for discipline and long-term focus. That could give Arattai resilience. Yet the road is steep. To move from hype to habit, it must create a category of its own, scale seamlessly, and cultivate trust. Arattai’s rise is therefore both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it succeeds in becoming a durable symbol of digital sovereignty or ends up as another footnote like Hike and Koo will depend on Zoho’s ability to innovate, differentiate, and lead in its own right.