Sridhar Vembu Announces Arattai's New Updates, Netizens Troll App With Jokes About User Numbers

Sridhar Vembu, co-founder of Zoho, announced recent updates to the Indian messaging app Arattai on social media platform X. In his post, Vembu highlighted the app's built-in meetings feature, which works across mobile and desktop, separate from group calls. However, Arattai has struggled to achieve the user numbers it aimed for, despite recent improvements. Zoho's chief scientist, Vembu, stated that the app has seen "nice updates recently" and praised its "excellent meeting capability out of the box."

The internet responded to Vembu's announcement with a wave of jokes targeting the app's user base, encryption, and name. Some users, like Vansh Yadav, made satirical posts about the app's minimal user growth and the unrealistic plans for future user expansion. Others, like @yotohonahitha, requested a more globally recognizable name for the app, citing its current difficulty to pronounce for non-Tamil speakers.

While the jokes exaggerate, they highlight a genuine issue: Arattai's failure to gain substantial traction in India. The app launched in 2021 but only gained significant attention after ministers endorsed it in September 2025. Downloads surged to 13.8 million in October 2025, with monthly active users rising from 1.17 million to 4.35 million.

However, the hype quickly faded, and Arattai dropped out of India's top 100 apps by November 2025, with monthly users falling to 4.09 million. In contrast, WhatsApp boasts over 500 million users in India. Zoho has not publicly responded to the calls for a name change.