Zoho’s Arattai plummets out of Top 100 apps after brief surge, highlighting WhatsApp’s grip

Barely a month after topping India’s app charts, Arattai, the homegrown messaging app developed by software giant Zoho, has tumbled out of the country’s top 100 apps — highlighting how difficult it remains to loosen WhatsApp’s grip on India’s vast digital communication market.

Read more: Zoho's Arattai: 'WhatsApp killer' or another Koo in the making?

As of November 4, Arattai ranked 105th on Google Play and 123rd on Apple’s App Store, a steep decline from its brief reign at the top in mid-October, according to data reviewed and reported by Moneycontrol. Across combined rankings — which include both apps and games — the platform slipped even further, placing 150th on Google Play and 128th on the App Store, the report added.

The sharp fall comes after a short-lived surge in downloads and public endorsements from several government ministers. Arattai, which means “casual talk” in Tamil, was launched in 2021 amid controversy over WhatsApp’s privacy policy changes that had prompted many Indian users to explore domestic alternatives. The app forms part of Zoho’s expanding consumer portfolio, alongside its privacy-focused browser Ulaa.

But early momentum has proved difficult to sustain.

According to industry data cited by Moneycontrol, Arattai’s downloads skyrocketed to 13.8 million in October 2025, up from 2.6 million the previous month. By early November, however, downloads had plunged to just under 200,000, suggesting waning enthusiasm after the initial buzz. Monthly active users followed a similar trajectory, climbing from 1.17 million in September to 4.35 million in October, before slipping slightly to 4.09 million in November.

The October spike coincided with a broader nationalistic push for “swadeshi” digital products.

Zoho has positioned Arattai as a privacy-first alternative to global platforms. The company says all data is stored within India, and that voice and video calls are end-to-end encrypted. Text messages, however, are not yet fully encrypted — a feature Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has said will roll out “in the coming weeks.” For now, users can opt into a “secret chat” mode for encrypted messaging. WhatsApp, by contrast, already offers end-to-end encryption across all personal messages, calls, and media.

India has seen several attempts to dethrone WhatsApp, including Hike, the homegrown app founded by Kavin Bharti Mittal in 2012, which once claimed 100 million users before shutting down in 2021. Most challengers have struggled to overcome the network effects and convenience that keep users locked into WhatsApp’s ecosystem.