Chinese content app Helo spends big to take on ShareChat
the social networking app by Chinese content giant Toutiao, is spending huge amounts of cash to catch up with India’s fastest-growing content startup ShareChat. Now, the question is whether local content companies can hold their own against established international rivals.
Helo has been downloaded over 10 million times, less than three months after it was launched in India. ShareChat too has a similar number of downloads. ShareChat is far more popular with users than Helo and has significantly higher user engagement levels than its Chinese rival, two people familiar with the companies’ metrics said, requesting anonymity.
And the number of app downloads isn’t the most reliable metric to track the popularity of an app—users could ignore the app after downloading it or even delete it. But it does serve as a useful indicator of how well a new app is doing.
Helo’s lightning expansion and Toutiao’s financial might and tech expertise indicate that ShareChat has a long and expensive battle on its hands. ShareChat has become the lodestar for content start-ups in India, like Flipkart was for e-commerce and Paytm for digital payments. How ShareChat fares against Helo and other international rivals will help determine investor sentiment towards content startups.
Helo has spent more than $20 million over the past quarter in order to achieve its fast growth, the people cited above said. Helo’s spending spree will increase customer acquisition costs for rivals, too. ShareChat is not starved of capital, and is in advanced talks to raise $100 million, Mint had reported.
“One thing is to see how well they (Chinese firms) are able to understand the landscape, especially in the vernacular side. That will define how well they can execute and it’s fairly difficult because most of these companies have their entire tech team based in China and the Indian team is only on the media and business side mostly,” said Ujjwal Chaudhry, engagement manager, consumer internet, RedSeer Consulting.
BENGALURU:Helo,