When India banned 59 Chinese apps at the end of June, one dodged the bullet: Resso. Owned by TikTok’s parent firm ByteDance, social music-streaming app Resso launched in India in March this year after several months of test runs.
Between January and June, its installs have skyrocketed, touching three million last month, data from market intelligence platform SensorTower show.
The Narendra Modi government’s June 29 ban on Chinese apps included not just Bytedance’s wildly popular TikTok, but also two of its other platforms, Vigo Video and Helo. The Beijing-based company lost over 200 million users only on account of TikTok in India.
However, the firm is still signing deals for office spaces with WeWork. The enthusiasm may be stemming from Resso’s success.
After all, Indians, who have been shunning all things Chinese after the border tension between the two countries, have been lapping up the Resso app without batting an eyelid. Overall, the app has hit about 10.6 million first-time installs from across the world on the App Store and Google Play. About 74% of these downloads come from India.
However, the app’s success still hangs in the balance given India’s overcrowded music streaming market, which is currently ruled by YouTube Music, JioSaavn and Gaana.
This article first appeared on Quartz.
