Had a great conversation with a few friends today about how the Indian government was pushing for “Make in India” to have Indians use more of apps developed in the country. The government wants an Indian version of WhatsApp and an Indian version of zoom. And a few more categories I would assume. The question here is why? Why do we need an Indian version of “x”?

I have my theories around why the government encourages people/companies to build apps created/hosted in the country, but I will cover that sometime in the future. The conversation got me thinking of some good apps developed in India. I don’t know if they are hosted in India too.

On top of my mind, I could think of these B2C apps:

All these apps cater to a particular segment relevant to the Indian market. All these apps are fun to use and have a good user experience. Do we have a Whatsapp competitor? A competitor for Twitter? A competitor for Facebook? Do we need these competitors? And if yes, should we be only looking for apps Made in India?