Perplexity chief executive Aravind Srinivas on Sunday congratulated Zoho for the sudden popularity of its messaging application Arattai, which added thousands of users in a few days.

“Congrats to Zoho for a very successful launch!” Srinivas wrote on microblogging site X, reposting founder Sridhar Vembu’s tweet.


Zoho-owned Arattai recently saw a significant increase in user traffic after endorsements from senior government officials in line with the rising preference for homegrown applications. Vembu reported that the app's traffic grew by 100 times within just three days. New sign-ups dramatically increased from 3,000 to 350,000 per day during this period.

"We are adding infrastructure on an emergency basis for another potential 100x peak surge. That is how exponentials work," Vembu shared in a social media post. This statement underscored the rapid pace of the app's adoption.

Vembu also disclosed that Zoho had initially planned a major release for Arattai by November. This release was intended to introduce new features, expand capacity, and include a marketing campaign. However, the app's exponential growth occurred much sooner than anticipated.

The messaging app, which rivals WhatsApp has found new fame and traction in India.

Last week, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union minister for information technology, endorsed Zoho's platform for documents and spreadsheets. He encouraged others to adopt these indigenous tools.

"I am moving to Zoho, our own Swadeshi platform for documents, spreadsheets & presentations. I urge all to join PM Shri @narendramodi Ji's call for Swadeshi by adopting indigenous products and services," the Minister said in his post on X.