India’s homegrown WhatsApp rival surges past 7.5M downloads
Can chat app Arattai succeed where past social fads in India have fallen?
Welcome back—I’m home (and alive) after the madness of Token2049 in Singapore, which we will get to shortly. This week our focus is on India. The country is WhatsApp’s largest market when it comes to users, but there’s a local rebellion that’s gradually gaining momentum.
Arattai, a homegrown messaging platform from software giant Zoho, crossed 7.5 million downloads last week as figures in India clamour for a local alternative to the Meta-owned chat app. New signups jumped from around 3,000 per day to more than 300,000.
Arattai, which means ‘casual chat’ in Tamil, is not exactly new. It was first launched in 2021, but its profile is on the rise after it was endorsed by senior government officials and India’s venture capital community. Zoho itself is a unique company. It produces software for businesses and bootstrapped itself to revenues of more than $1 billion per year, as of 2022, with offices across India, the US, Europe and other parts of Asia.
Like other Zoho products, Arattai comes packed with features. It leans on WhatsApp and Telegram for basic messaging, and includes Slack-like features, video calling and more.
The appeal is simple: data sovereignty. That’s a topic that is gaining increased attention as the sheer amount of data produced on people, communication and beyond continues to grow exponentially. Do you want your precious and confidential information stored on a server in the US or China, or would you prefer it to be kept domestically? Most people’s opinion is the latter. Arattai is giving an answer to WhatsApp users in India.
The company is also betting on an ad-free model, in contrast to WhatsApp which introduced (some) advertising to its product earlier this year.
The rise of Arattai also ties into strained relations between the US and India. There has long been an appetite for local alternatives to US products in India, particularly when it comes to technology, but now the government is pushing harder for options to rival Google, Microsoft and other US tech giants.
That’s the good bit. We often see social media fads, and there have been streaky apps in India that have struggled to be sustainable or even just competitive—remember Koo, ShareChat, etc?
Zoho itself is an established business but consumer messaging is not its core competency. Messaging was a tough war that saw only a few winners because of switching costs, general apathy to new products, entrenched social habits and networks, and more. Getting people to move over is not easy, and in many cases likely not possible.
There may also be security concerns. Meta is much maligned but WhatsApp has always been considered one of the most secure messaging platforms in existence. That said, Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu has stated privacy is a core focus and one that won’t be sacrificed for the business model or revenue.
It is early days, but we will see exactly what strategy Zoho puts into place. Nationalism alone will not be enough to make Arattai more than another passing fad.
Have a great week,
Jon
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Grab dives deeper into crypto with stablecoin scan payments
Grab, one of Southeast Asia’s most prominent consumer tech companies, is embracing crypto after it inked a deal to let users in Singapore use stablecoins to pay for goods and services from its merchants.
Against the backdrop of Token2049, one of the world’s largest Web3 events which runs in Singapore around the annual Formula 1 race, Grab teamed up with crypto exchange OKX to add stablecoin payments to its scan-to-pay service. Merchants don’t actually receive crypto during the transaction. The stablecoin is converted from a USD-denominated token into Singapore dollars using XSGD, a Singaporean stablecoin, in the middle.
Grab’s users in Singapore have been able to top up their Grab wallet using stablecoins since early last year, but now they can effectively spend stablecoins through QR payments thanks to this OKX partnership.
There’s already a plethora of crypto-linked debit cards from companies like Binance, Coinbase, ReddotPay—which recently became a unicorn—and others, but platforms themselves adopting is an obvious next step.
This is not the first time Grab has made moves in the Web3 space. Two years ago, also around the Token2049 event, it launched a ‘Web3 wallet’ for users in Singapore to store NFTs, rewards and other collectibles. That feature, developed in partnership with stablecoin giant Circle, didn’t really go anywhere.
It’s notable that Singapore has been the main focus for Grab’s crypto plays. That’ll limit the impact among Grab’s 180 million user base, but it seems likely that its stablecoin payment features could be expanded regionally if and when supporting regulation comes into existence. America’s move to regulate stablecoins through the GENIUS Act, which I’ve written about before, has got the rest of the world following suit as countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and others investigate their options.
Interest from Asian governments doesn’t just stop with stablecoins—a battle that is playing out fiercely between Singapore and Hong Kong. Thailand is exploring expansion of its crypto ETF markets, following similar moves in the US, while Vietnam just introduced a framework for regulating crypto assets.
Grab’s move to further embrace stablecoins could be a precursor to platforms like Shopee, Lazada and others doing the same.
China
US officials say China’s spy agency has escalated cyberattacks despite a 2023 warning from the CIA link
Hackers aligned with China gained access to sensitive and non-public information from multiple governments across Africa, the Middle East and Asia over the last 2.5 years by accessing communication data via a Microsoft Exchange breach, researchers have found link
Huawei plans to double production of its 910C Ascend AI chips to about 600,000 units next year and lift total Ascend output to as many as 1.6M in 2026 link
Those Ascend AI processors use advanced components from TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix, research has found link
Huawei’s Zurich lab unveiled an open-source method that trims LLM memory use by 60–70% without hurting output—the result is better performing mid and low-range GPUs and cheaper cloud costs link
China is reportedly tightening restrictions on European telecom suppliers Nokia and Ericsson, as part of a push to reduce reliance on Western tech link
US and China are squaring off over undersea internet cables, the critical but often overlooked infrastructure that carries almost all global traffic link
New York-based Tower Research Capital is under investigation in China for allegedly smuggling advanced trading hardware and installing it at the Shanghai Futures Exchange link
DeepSeek launched its experimental model V3.2-Exp, claiming improved training efficiency and better handling of long text link
Chinese national Zhimin Qian pleaded guilty in a London court after police seized nearly $7B in Bitcoin tied to her fraud scheme—she allegedly ran Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology in China from 2014–2017, luring 128,000 victims with promises of 300% returns before fleeing on a fake passport link
How a northern Chinese coal city that never took off after 2012’s price crash, has been repurposed as a self-driving sandbox link
China’s new K-visa program to attract foreign professionals raised concerns about disadvantaging local graduates link
China’s push to integrate AI in children’s education is creating a booming market, with parents drawn to cheaper and seemingly effective alternatives to human tutors link
A new AI ranking feature in Alibaba’s Amap service had been used by 400M users, nearly half of its MAU, within the first month link
Earlier this year, Anker offered customers money in exchange for videos of package and car thefts to train its AI systems to help better detect thieves who steal cars and packages link
India
Maximor, a New York-based AI startup with an office in Bengaluru, raised $9M to reduce finance teams’ reliance on Excel link
X says it will fight an Indian court ruling that upheld the use of a system to automate content takedowns by allowing government agencies to directly demand the removal of unlawful content link
Apple has expanded its India supply chain to nearly 45 companies, creating around 350,000 jobs as it continues to grow its local footprint. link
Apple has significantly boosted its footprint in India, expanding its supply chain to nearly 45 companies—including local component makers and subassembly partners—and generating roughly 350,000 jobs, 120,000 of them direct. This growth complements the hundreds of thousands of positions created by five iPhone factories operated by Apple vendors in the country, underscoring the tech giant’s deepening commitment to the world’s second-largest smartphone market. Officials say the push includes more than 20 Indian MSMEs, reflecting Apple’s strategy to integrate domestic manufacturers into its global operations.
Kratos Gamer Network, which helps AI, DeFi, gaming, and consumer apps reach verified users, raised $13.5M to bring its total funding to $43.5M link
Perplexity teamed up with Airtel in July to offer a year of its AI service for free and now the company says India is its largest market based on users—next, it plans to set up a local investment fund to spur further growth, according to CEO Aravind Srinivas link
We later saw OpenAI target India with a budget subscription and hiring plans, and so Anthropic is also eying an expansion in India link
AI chip unicorn Groq is expanding into Asia with plans to open its first regional data center this year, targeting India as a key market where nearly half its developer base already comes from link
Bollywood stars are pressing courts to protect their voices and likenesses from AI misuse, with YouTube a key focus link
India issued notices to 25 offshore crypto platforms for violating anti-money laundering rules link
Reliance Industries has started informal talks with banks on a potential IPO for Reliance Jio, which could raise $5B from its 5% stake and surpass India’s biggest-ever listing link
Defence tech startup Unmanned raised $2M link
Data Centre company Sify Infinit Spaces reportedly plans to file for a $500M IPO within two weeks link
Southeast Asia
Indonesia briefly suspended TikTok’s local license after the company refused to fully share live-streaming data during the August protests—it lifted the suspension the same day after the data was provided, the ministry of communication and digital affairs explained link
Lazada teamed up with South Korea’s Gmarket to launch a LazMall storefront offering Southeast Asian shoppers access to 20 million Korean products link
Singapore’s Neptune Robotics raised $52M to expand its robot cleaners for ship hulls into 30 new countries as part of its plans to go public in 2027—the robots are used to remove barnacles and algae that help ships use less fuel link
Indonesia-based digital bank Yup raised $32M in a C-1 funding round that included investors Moore Strategic Ventures, Spice Expeditions and Platanus link
Malaysia will launch a sovereign AI cloud to secure national AI capabilities and support government services and digital development link
South Korea
Rebellions closed a $250M round at a $1.4B valuation which included new investor Arm and returning backers Samsung Ventures, Pegatron’s VC arm, Lion X Ventures and Korea Development Bank link
Samsung and SK Hynix have struck preliminary deals to supply chips for OpenAI’s Stargate project—their share prices jumped as a result, as you’d expect link
China’s battery makers are overtaking South Korea in the EV market, as CATL and BYD run factories near full capacity while South Korea’s top three, LG, SK and Samsung, operate at half capacity link
A string of high-profile hacks, affecting credit card companies, telecoms, startups and government agencies has put South Korea’s cybersecurity credentials in the spotlight link
Samsung has integrated Coinbase into Samsung Pay to allow Galaxy smartphone owners to load up on crypto—the partnership is initially in the US and rolling out to other markets later link
Taiwan
Washington is pressing Taiwan to shift chip investment and production to the US so half of American demand is met locally link
But Taiwan’s negotiator has said it has no intention of accepting the agreement link
The country is also offering support for its tech firms to invest in the US, including possible credit guarantees—in return, it wants US help with land, visas and regulatory improvements link
Rest of Asia
Afghanistan is the latest country to be hit by a nationwide internet blackout, as the Taliban cut access to curb “immoral activities” link
North Korea is stepping up its illicit IT worker program, moving beyond the US tech sector to infiltrate companies in a wide range of industries globally, where its operatives have already secured interviews and in some cases potential employment link
The operatives have used AI-generated identities to land remote tech jobs and funnel up to $1 billion into Kim Jong Un’s nuclear program, blending into companies via Slack, Zoom, and other corporate tools. link