Clubhouse Popularity In Nepal
12 Jul 2021
With its Android release, Clubhouse has got huge traction on the Nepali market and has been able to captivate Nepalese as an audio-only and invite-only chat app. You might see people post up a story or talk about joining the clubhouse room pretty frequently.
But are you out of this loop? Have you had enough of being out of this trend and want to know about what all your friends are fussing over? Don’t worry, we’ll talk about Clubhouse and how it’s a mainstream trend in Nepal.
What is Clubhouse?
If you are confused about what this app is, imagine an app that lets you hear others’ conversations. Hold on, it’s not that creepy as well. These people want to be heard and there’s full consensus. Also, make the app only accessible with an invite from the previous joiner.
It is a virtual world where conversations are called Rooms and are usually launched by a Club, run by people who are enthusiastic about a particular area of interest.
Launched in March of 2020, its popularity has increased from 1500 users in May 2020 to 10 million+ users by now. And, Nepalese users are a good chunk of that number. Maybe because of its invite-only premium feel, or a specific niche app, or even because of the pandemic, Clubhouse saw huge growth in its users.
Especially in Nepal, people are investing their time in midst of pandemics onto the app to join in on different rooms to interact and talk to people. You can see some high-profile people hosting and joining in on the conversation in clubhouse rooms where you can get to listen to them.
How did it work?
If you don’t know how it operates, here’s a quick rundown on the app.
The application is an invite-only app which means, your account needs to be accepted or you need an invitation from existing users who get 2 invites initially. Now after they interact and join in different groups and rooms, you get more invites to invite in other people.
As we talked about the clubhouse having rooms, each room has speakers displayed on the stage section and at least one of them is a moderator for the room. They have the ability to host, mute users, remove users, and pull listeners to the stage area to become speakers.
Potential Reasons for its popularity
Why did clubhouse, an audio-only app that is pretty hard to get into, so famous and is constantly growing in Nepali Market? Let’s see some potential reasons for it.
FOMO
Being an invite-only app, it came with a certain degree of notability which attracted people to interact and get access to it. This gave rise to curiosity where everyone wanted to know about the app and how to get in.
Additionally, it exploited the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) nature of people to make them more interested and notice the product.
Niche
Having audio on an app is not a huge thing. Matter of fact, almost every social media application allows you to contact people through audio. However, audio-only is a different aspect. It was something new that sparked the interest of users.
Its niche is audio-only which allows no video or photo sharing. You just go on the app to listen to other people or give out your opinion. Coupled with its invite-only feature, the app felt more premium and exclusive. This acted as a catalyst for more growth.
Lockdown
Nepali market is overwhelmed by android phones compared to iOS. However, since the Android version launched at a later date, it couldn’t cover a huge audience base in Nepal. However, the android version of the application launched right on time when the country was on lockdown following the pandemic.
While every Nepali was locked inside their residence, it became an instant hit that allowed them to interact with people in their free time. Additionally, the lockdown allowed users to invest more time in the app.
Shareability
The trend of clubhouse itself became a huge traffic driving point of the app in the context of Nepal. The emergence of the trend where youths and young adults posted screenshots, memes, and talks about clubhouses on other platforms, increased the customer reach and enticed many more people to join in themselves.
Sharing rooms and screenshots were very easy and this is a huge driving point for gathering more traffic.
High Profile Users and Community
Unlike other social media apps, Clubhouse doesn’t focus on interacting with your friends but gives users the ability to formulate new friendships or connect with new communities. You can still form a room to talk with your friends, but you can also join a different community of like-minded people.
Moreover, high-profile people and celebrities from Nepal are already on the application. And, various popular communities are talking about different topics. This allows new users to join the app and get into the community and start listening to the community of their choice.
Anti Archive Model
Privacy and data have been a huge concern to us in recent times. Considering that, the assurance clubhouse provides about not having any archival data is a huge positive on customers’ side.
This allowed people to share their thoughts and communicate without holding back which gave rise to the traffic.
Conclusion
The popularity of clubhouse is largely dependent on the features, timing, and niche of the application. Having multiple factors affecting its growth, the clubhouse was able to gather huge traffic on Nepalese users on the platform.
It became an instant hit with youths and young adults of Nepal which gave them the platform to talk with like-minded people on different topics like entrepreneurship, politics and so much more.
