Arattai: Zoho's Arattai was widely touted as a WhatsApp alternative; is its four-day run over?

Zoho generated a lot of buzz in October. People wrote various things about its various products on social media. At the time, it seemed as if India had truly found an alternative. It was touted as a competitor to products from Microsoft, Google, and Meta. But now, the buzz around Zoho has subsided. One of Zoho's products is Arattai, which was being touted as an alternative to WhatsApp.

Arattai, a WhatsApp competitor launched by Indian software company Zoho, has dropped out of the top 100 apps in India on both Google Play and Apple's App Store. This comes barely a month after reaching the top of the charts. Zoho's Arattai's exit from the top 100 highlights the difficulties Meta faces in challenging WhatsApp's dominance. As of November 4th, the messaging app ranked 105th on Google Play and 123rd on the App Store, significantly down from its peak position in mid-October.

Is the moonlight over for four days?
Zoho has hundreds of products. Through these products, Zoho brings in significant business from abroad. However, the Indian government has now started using its products. The government is gradually replacing Google's Gmail with Zoho's ZohoMail. This has already begun in many offices. Meanwhile, Arattai was also in the news for competing with Meta's WhatsApp. Many people downloaded it in October, but within a few days, people started to disengage.

In October 2025, Arattai's downloads increased to 13.8 million, significantly higher than the 2.63 million in September. However, this surge did not last long; downloads fell to just 195,519 in November (as of November 4th), indicating that interest waned after the initial craze. Monthly active users (MAUs) also reflect this trend. Arattai's MAUs increased from 1.17 million in September to 4.35 million in October, and then slightly declined to 4.09 million in November.

On one hand, we are trying to promote Indian products, and on the other hand, we are hesitant to use those same products. Furthermore, it is not easy to compete directly with established companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Zoho's main business is software development. But by creating Arattai, Zoho gave Indians an alternative to WhatsApp. People showed interest in it for a while. But this app will have to struggle further to make a place in the market like WhatsApp.

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