Users flock to Arattai, Zoho’s messaging app amid ‘Atmanirbhar’ push

Arattai, an Indian-made messaging app produced by Zoho, has seen a large rise in usage in recent days, reflecting the growing sentiment for homegrown software under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat project.

According to Zoho's founder, Sridhar Vembu, the app saw a 100x surge in traffic in only three days, with new sign-ups jumping from 3,000 to 350,000 per day.

"We are adding infrastructure on an emergency basis for another potential 100x peak surge. That is how exponentials work," Vembu shared in a social media post, highlighting the pace of adoption, NDTV reports.

The unexpected surge has forced Zoho to focus on improving Arattai's backend and addressing technical issues.

"As we add a lot more infrastructure, we are also fine-tuning and updating the code to fix issues as they arise. We have all-hands-on-deck working flat out," Vembu said.

He also said that Zoho had initially planned a significant release for Arattai in November, with new features, more capacity, and a marketing push. However, exponential growth occurred earlier than anticipated.

The development comes as Zoho receives enquiries about a possible stock market listing in India. In response to such speculation, Vembu stated that ventures such as Arattai may not have been conceivable if Zoho had been a publicly listed company.

Previously, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Railways, Information and Broadcasting, Electronics and Information Technology, backed Zoho's platform for documents and spreadsheets and encouraged others to do the same.