Livestreaming apps take off; some see red
Three of the 10 top-grossing apps on Google’s Play Store are live streaming apps — Chamet, Tango and Boloji Pro. All of these apps offer content that often borders on the Not Safe for Work category and have women who are a lot of times available for video calls, experts said. The top-grossing apps are those with the highest number of in-app payments made through the Play Store.
Meanwhile, apps like Chingari, which began as a short-form video app, introduced the live-streaming model as an additional feature a few months ago. It is now among the five top-grossing apps in iOS India “...overtaking Facebook India”.Micropayments for apps “It is the ninth top-grossing app in Playstore, overtaking Twitter India in revenues,” Sumit Ghosh, CEO of Chingari, tweeted recently. Even as these apps claim they have tight controls in place, experts argue that they could be violating laws.
“Live streaming is becoming more popular because as a feature it is more engaging,” Manish Maheshwari, co-founder of Fanory, told ET. “It leads to interactivity and a real-time response. It can be an extremely powerful tool but like all technologies how it is used or misused is up to people.” He said that for instance, if a teacher uses it to live stream lectures for students in remote locations, it can be very beneficial, but at the same time, he said he can imagine “unscrupulous elements” misusing it.
What makes live-streaming even more lucrative is that it drives micropayments for apps. For example, viewers on these apps can gift creators virtual kisses, donuts, lollipops, hearts and a number of other things, all at a cost — paid for by micropayments that range from Rs 100 to Rs 4,000. In a report on May 5, Mohit Rana, Partner at Redseer Strategy
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