Koo, the Indian alternative to Twitter, has crossed 10 million users to narrow the gap with the US SMS app after repeated disagreements with the local government in the past few months.
Bloomberg News reported that the 16-month-old application, which allows sending tweet-like posts in English and in 7 Indian dialects such as Hindi and Kannada, has seen about 85% of its users join since February, when disputes escalated between Twitter and the administration of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Indian government ministers, opposition politicians, cricket stars and Bollywood celebrities have started releasing leaflets in Indian dialects on Koo.
Twitter, which had 17.5 million monthly users earlier this year in India, complied with new government rules this month after appointing new CEOs in India, including a compliance officer.
“We came into the spotlight due to Twitter’s skirmishes with the government, but users soon realized that they could only express in their mother tongue on Ku... Our app connects English-speaking India,” said Apramya Radha Krishna, co-founder and CEO of Bombinet Technologies in Bangalore. In India that doesn't speak English in a country with 700 million internet users, that's a very good thing."