Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra Group, has extended his support to Zoho’s indigenous messaging platform, Arattai. On Saturday, Mahindra announced on X (formerly Twitter) that he had downloaded the app “with pride,” sparking a warm exchange with Zoho co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu. The interaction quickly went viral, drawing attention to the Made-in-India alternative app to WhatsApp.
Anand Mahindra shared on X, “Downloaded Arattai today. With pride.” The message was perceived as a boost for India's expanding technology sector and domestic innovation. Sridhar Vembu, the head of Zoho Corporation and a strong proponent of developing native technology solutions, quickly replied with a sincere message.
“I was in a meeting in our Tenkasi office with our Arattai engineers, working out refinements to the app, and a team member showed this tweet. Thank you, Anand Mahindra, this gives us even more determination,” Vembu wrote on X.
Mahindra later replied to Vembu's post with a brief but supportive remark: “We’re cheering for you, @svembu.” The exchange, observed by many users, highlighted a moment of mutual admiration between two leading figures in Indian business.
Introduced by Zoho to showcase its indigenous technology, Arattai, translating to 'casual chat' in Tamil, seeks to offer a secure, India-centric alternative to WhatsApp. The application facilitates text and voice messaging, voice and video calls, and allows connectivity on as many as five devices.
Arattai has experienced a significant increase in user engagement in the past few weeks. Vembu disclosed that the platform's traffic escalated almost 100-fold in just three days, with daily new registrations soaring from 3,000 to 350,000.
Users on X praised Arattai’s strong privacy features default Signal-level encryption, disappearing messages, and screenshot blocking comparing it to Telegram’s Secret Chat. Sridhar Vembu responded, “Our priority is privacy. We will not pursue a business model that compromises it.” Another user urged the team to stay mindful of big tech competition and build a foolproof app that every Indian can trust.