India’s decision to ban 59 of China’s biggest mobile phone apps, including TikTok and WeChat, will affect more than just unhappy young users unable to access their accounts. Chinese tech groups will suffer the loss of their fastest-growing market. Potential problems in other industries will be felt disproportionately by India.
India cites threats to national security as the explanation for its ban. The US has raised similar concerns in the past. But anti-China sentiment has also been spreading following the death of 20 soldiers in a border stand-off with the People’s Liberation Army.
Even so, Indian consumers remained enthusiastic users of Chinese-owned apps. For ByteDance-owned video app TikTok, India is now the biggest market outside China, home to nearly one-third of its total customers.