Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s ‘swadeshi’ company, Patanjali, has dumped its plans to relaunch Kimbho app, touted to be their answer to the messaging platform, WhatsApp. This has come after Patanjali’s failed attempts to launch the app twice. The first attempt to launch Kimbho was undertaken on May 30, after which another attempt was made by Patanjali to launch the messaging platform on August 27.
The company parted ways with Aditi Kamal, the brain behind the idea of Kimbho. After that Patanjali joined hands with Noida-based app-making firm, Social Revolution Media and Research Pvt Ltd to launch Kimbho.
However, Acharya Balkrishna, CEO and MD of Patanjali Ayurved informed that they wanted to launch a technically sound application which could promise water-tight security and privacy but were not satisfied with the work done. He also added that they are currently “very occupied” with new projects and that they don’t have the time and resources to put in on Kimbo any further.
Kimbho app was taken down a few hours after its initial May launch. The app was launched on a trial basis for a day and was downloaded 1,50,000 times from Google Play Store.
Users discovered the app’s uncanny similarities with another messaging app, Bolo Messenger. The trial version of the app that claimed to include end-to-end encryption was once again launched on August 15 before its official launch on August 27. The trial version was also taken down from Google Play Store after it missed the official launch deadline following reports of poor user experience and security concerns.
Kimbho was initially promoted as a safe alternative for Indians amid data breach uproar. During the Facebook data breach, Balkrishna had said that data from our country fuelled their economy and has been misused without our permission. He had said that to ensure the privacy of Indian consumers, they are launching the “swadeshi alternative of WhatsApp”.
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