Koo Says Aiming to Overtake Twitter’s User Base in India Within a Year

Amid the thrill over Elon Musk’s proposed takeover of Twitter, India’s homegrown microblogging platform Koo is aiming at overtaking it within the nation inside a 12 months when it comes to consumer base, which has seen a speedy progress, a senior firm official mentioned.

Started in March 2020, the social media platform has witnessed 30 million downloads with “10 times” progress in consumer base within the final 12 months, and it’s anticipating the quantity to cross 100 million by the top of 2022, Koo Co Founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna advised PTI.

The platform, which is at the moment obtainable in India in 10 languages, together with English, has operations in Nigeria, and is taking a look at extra multilingual international locations like Indonesia as “priority” nations for abroad growth, he mentioned. It has already raised $45 million (roughly Rs. 350 crore) and can “revisit funding plans” by the top of the 2022, he mentioned, including, the corporate can be “ready to explore different types of monetisation” choices within the subsequent couple of years.

“We have 7-8 million active users every month and are expecting 100 million downloads by the end of 2022. In India, we are larger than Twitter in terms of the non-English user base, and our aim is to capture the domestic market and become the largest microblogging platform in the country. We will do that in the next 12 months,” Radhakrishna advised PTI in an interview.

Koo now has an “80 percent non-English” consumer base with Hindi microbloggers having the biggest share, adopted by Kannada, Telugu, Marathi and Bengali, he mentioned.

Asked whether or not Musk’s proposed $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,41,100 crore) takeover of Twitter has any influence on Koo, Radhakrishna mentioned, “The acquisition is an English-world phenomenon. We have not seen any positive or negative effects of this.

“The cause why we began Koo is that with regards to freedom of expression on the web, it’s extremely restricted to individuals who know English very effectively. We have began the enterprise to allow folks to speak in their very own language.” Being open, transparent, and unbiased as a social media platform is very important, he said.

“Our goal is to maintain rising confidence of customers and earn their belief. We have opened up the algorithms of the location to the general public. Elon Musk is proposing to do the identical for Twitter. The authenticity of customers on the platform can also be vital, and we allowed folks to self-verify themselves utilizing authorities id paperwork like Aadhaar. This encourages extra real customers to be related to our web site,” the IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus said.

Asked how the microblogging site is planning to broaden the user base, he said it has different language communities, and an English user can easily connect with people who are using local languages on the site.

“We have developed the platform uniquely so that people can post in multiple languages. It is critical and important for us to capture the non-English market in India and connect them with English users.” Speaking on the problems of faux accounts, abusive posts or hate speech, he mentioned, “Users are free to express whatever they want and make their opinion, but they have to follow the law of land, based on which community guidelines are created. We encourage respectful free speech.” Koo is planning to arrange an advisory council to take care of delicate and excessive instances the place some could take into account a selected submit as “hate speech”, whereas others could discover it as a “freedom of speech”, Radhakrishna mentioned.

It is vital to have a course of to take care of such excessive conditions. The proposed council could comprise 5-11 members throughout completely different fields, he mentioned.

“We are engaged on it and hope to kind the physique in a 12 months’s time,” he added.