India Edition "Fast Hand": Subcontinent Is Being Changed By Short Video.

India girl Kajul is sitting on the tractor. The more people there are, the more family members, neighbors, peers and elders come to the farm to watch Kajul. At this moment, with the focus of the media lens, Kajul has become the "Star" in the village.

Kajul is a India girl. Her home is located in Niwrri, central, northern India. It is about more than 400 kilometers from Delhi, India, and it needs more than 5 hours of train and nearly 2 hours of car.

Like most rural girls in India, Kajul's daily life is to do housework and farm work, while tractors are just a tool for her daily work. But what Kajul didn't expect was that these accustomed jobs helped her become a video player and changed her life.

Now, Kajul has 260 thousand fans on the short video platform VMate, earning a certain monthly income. In India, "making money" is an important threshold for many India girls, while the door and door represent two completely different life trajectories.

Kajul, which is 400 kilometers away from New Delhi, has 260 thousand fans through short videos. - Data pictures

Changed young people in India

When we first arrive in India, we will feel that this is a "disordered" society. As the second largest population in the world, India has a very high population density. Coupled with relatively backward urban infrastructure, even in capital Delhi, you will feel a "crowded, messy" environment.

A Chinese resident in India told the twenty-first Century economic news reporter that India's rule is that there are no rules. Here, the drivers are very anxious to drive. They press the horn vigorously, and they will not let go of any gap on the already crowded road. The three lane road often drives 5 cars.

But what is interesting is that for the cattle, sheep and other animals that can be seen everywhere on the roadside, drivers in India will slow down and bypass slowly, patiently, and sometimes encounter animals who are crossing the road slowly. After living in India for a few days, it will be discovered that this is actually a country full of contradictions, such as the contradiction between the rich and the poor and the contradiction between the old and new ideas.

For the vast majority of young people in India, what they most want to achieve is to break through class restrictions. But the reality is that the employment rate in India is not optimistic. By the end of 2018, the employment rate of India was 46.8%, and the proportion of India women among these employed population was far lower than that of men.

In India, especially in the rural areas of India, the idea of men's preference for women is very serious. One of the most important reasons is that India marries daughters and requires women to prepare betrothal gifts and dowry to the men. This makes many families feel that they are losing money by giving birth to their daughters, so they do not allow their daughters to read too many books, but rather do their work at home early.

The above Chinese people told reporters that girls in rural areas in India were very few in high school. After junior high school, they no longer read books. Next, their life trajectories were also very fixed, that is, to help their families to work, and then to become a housewife, to have children and to continue working.

This seems to be a vicious circle, because without school, we lose the chance to work, and they also lose the right to make choices. 5 months ago, the life of Arti Sharma, a 19 year old India girl, was like that mentioned above. She told the twenty-first Century business news reporter through translation that she was forced to leave school in Grade 10 (equivalent to the first year in China) and then worked at home for farm work.

But a few weeks ago, Arti did a very great thing. She became the first girl in the village who refused to propose a marriage. On the issue of marriage, the situation of parents arranged in India is still very common. Reporters asked a number of locals, they told reporters that, in general, if it has arrived at the door to promote the family link, then this marriage is basically set, such as Arti refused to kin is very rare.

And all of this can happen because Arti started filming short videos 5 months ago. At present, she has 950 thousand fans on VMate, and has gained more than 100 thousand rupees (about 10 thousand yuan) in this period of time. With Arti's words, she has made more choices.

Like Kajul, the video captured by Arti is the content of her daily farm work. Arti said that her cousin taught her how to take short videos and help her to shoot. At the beginning, her parents did not support her. The villagers also felt that she had not been married yet, and had often appeared behind her.

But later, Arti used 3-4 months to prove to his parents that making short videos is not a disgrace. Arti said she showed her fans to her parents to let her parents know that this is a serious platform and that so many people support her, and more importantly, she can earn money through this.

Now, Arti's parents have been very supportive of her taking a short video. Previous filming by cousin has been replaced by Arti's brother. At the same time, people in the village began to accept this. Many of their peers began to shoot short videos under the influence of Arti.

Like Arti, Roshni also started filming short videos with the help of his brother. Roshni there are eight brothers and sisters in the family, five sisters, one brother and one brother, and the mother is a housewife. The family's income is depended on their father's farm work, and the living conditions are very tense.

Before, the whole family only had a cell phone, and later, under the guidance of his brother, Roshni became a music actor. Now, Roshni has 860 thousand fans on VMate, and the money she earned through VMate can already afford her tuition fees. Not only that, she bought a cell phone with her own money a month ago.

Today, Roshni's younger brother also starts shooting short videos. Roshni said they were the first people to start filming videos in the village, and so became villager's eyes. "A lot of people in the village find it embarrassing to show her face, and think her video is not good, but she is jealous to see her making money."

Roshni is not very concerned about the villagers' arguments, and their parents are very supportive of her and her younger brother when they see that doing this can bring income to their families. Now, Roshni has more expectations for his future life.

India edition "quick hand"

In the short video area of India, VMate is not a forerunner. Other head businesses also include Tik tok under byte beating and LIKEE under YY.

At the end of 2017, Enosh David joined VMate and became the first local employee of VMate team. Previously, Enosh David worked for eight years in India, a local Internet value-added service company, and had much experience in the production and distribution of Internet content in India, and decided to join VMate, which is actually the name of Alibaba.

Enosh told the twenty-first Century business news reporter that while he was casting his resume, VMate was a new team, but he knew very well about UC and Alibaba behind VMate. "I did a project called Hello TV before my company and my colleagues. At that time, I was also heading towards the UGC platform, but I failed at last. When I knew Alibaba was going to lay a short video track in India, I thought the opportunity was coming.

UC was founded in 2004 and was acquired in 2014 and incorporated into the Alibaba. UC's entry into the India market can be traced back to 2009. In 2011, UC officially established the India office. According to statistics, since its internationalization in 2009, UC has now covered more than 150 countries, covering areas like South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, with 430 million users living in the world, with 170 million months living in double India (India and Indonesia).

At the end of 2017, UC began to implement business innovation mechanism within the team to encourage employees to hatch new businesses. At that time, UC India team put forward a number of project ideas, of which the first to highlight the siege is VMate.

Cheng Daofang is the sponsor of the VMate project, and now he is the head of the whole project. He told the twenty-first Century business news reporter that the reason why he proposed to make UGC short video products was because there were great opportunities in India market.

"When UC came to sea, it put forward a slogan" copy from China ". We will take some successful domestic scenes overseas to see if there is any similar market demand. In 2017, the outbreak of China's short video industry, due to the similarity between China and India, we also feel that this demand for mobile Internet content consumption also exists in India. Cheng Daofang said.

Facts have proved that Cheng Daofang's judgment was very accurate at that time, and even in a sense, India users had more demand for short videos than Chinese users. Staying in the countryside of India, you can feel the desire of India young people to become famous, especially the influence of Bollywood culture. Young people in India also have strong desire to perform in front of the camera.

Nagor Nagin is Kajul's brother. He has 32 thousand fans on VMate. The first time he saw Nagor, he was dancing a snake, and two cobras wrapped around his arms, opposite to his four eyes. Others looked worried, but Nagor was very calm. In fact, all video content uploaded by Nagor was related to snakes.

Nagor told the twenty-first Century business news reporter that he had learned to play snakes from his friends. "I was shocked when I saw my friend playing snake," he said. "Then I learned with him, and later I found that this attracted many fans, and I began to perform."

At the beginning of learning, Nagor was often bitten by a snake, but he kept on learning. Now, Nagor has also become a video player on the VMate platform. On his way to Nagor's house, the reporter saw a large billboard on the crossing of the village, with 10 heads of India youth on it, and Nagor in it.

A local reporter told reporters that as soon as he arrived at Diwali (Diwali festival, similar to the Chinese New Year), the village made the big poster, which was called "net red" in the village, and wished them to represent the village to bless the people who had been there. In the eyes of the villagers, like Nagor, people who have tens of thousands of fans on the Internet and can earn money have become a "Star".

Young people's desire for fame and their natural desire to make India become an excellent market for developing short video products. But in fact, the real India short video market broke out in September 2016. A India telecom company named Jio began to promote the 4G network to the market in a free mode.

It is the emergence of Jio that greatly reduces the cost of the India 4G network, thus promoting the explosive growth of the popularity of 4G networks in India. This also provides fertile soil for the development of India mobile Internet products.

By the end of 2017, after defining the short video track, there were two directions in front of VMate, one was the "trembling path" and the other was the "fast track". The difference between the two is very obvious. It can be simply summed up as the former represents "tall and tall" while the latter is "grounding gas".

In the end, VMate chose the "fast track". Cheng Daofang said that the choice of this direction has a great relationship with the whole UC culture. In the past 10 years, UC's operation in India is aiming at a large number of grassroots users in India. Now it is a short video platform, and it is not a stage that only a few outstanding people can participate in.

Arti's cousin, in an interview with the twenty-first Century economic news reporter, said he had been making short videos for 2-3 years, but only after contacting VMate did he think of letting his cousin join him. This is because he feels that his cousin lives in a very small village and can't sing or dance or have any other talent, which will be too ordinary on other platforms. But on VMate, she shows that housework may also be concerned.

As a local employee in India, Enosh told reporters that compared with other short video platforms, the most special thing about VMate is that its content is more real and shows the aspect of life. So the content on VMate is not aesthetical or even "wild".

In Enosh's view, VMate is not only an entertainment platform, but also a tool for people to show real life. This shows the different aspects of India society. There are some nice looking people singing and dancing, others are just recording daily life.

The development of India mobile Internet needs some time. In the process, Cheng said that the focus of VMate's development will continue to be on community building and maintenance. Through online communication and offline activities, we will maintain more quality producers and stick to community stickiness.

Cheng Daofang thinks, "as long as the community sticky is good, and so on the development of the India market, I think it will be easier to make money than imagine at that time." Recently, VMate announced that its monthly mobile user scale has reached 50 million.

Enosh's remarks in an interview impressed reporters. He said that the goal of VMate is to build a platform for the real India so that Indians can enjoy equal opportunities to share. As an Indian, he should know more about what is "real India" than others.