Is Arattai not made in India?: Play Store’s American address sparks user confusion

A user’s post on X questioning Arattai’s “Made in India” credentials has ignited curiosity about the app’s development roots after noticing that the Play Store lists a U.S. address under developer contact. 

Arattai is built entirely in India by Zoho Corporation, headquartered in Chennai, with its U.S. listing reflecting global compliance practices.

The user’s concern, tagged to Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu and the Arattai team, asked whether the app was actually developed in India, given its American contact address on the Android Play Store. 

The question tapped into a broader sentiment: Indian users want to know if their data—and the app itself—is rooted in India.

While Zoho has not issued a formal clarification in response to the post, Arattai is developed, engineered, and maintained by Zoho’s Indian teams. 

The listing of a U.S. address is a common practice among multinational tech firms for Play Store compliance and international operations.

Zoho has repeatedly affirmed Arattai’s Indian identity. Sridhar Vembu has described Arattai as a Made-in-India app, developed as part of Zoho’s broader mission to build indigenous technology free from Wall Street pressure and tailored for Indian users.

The app’s surging popularity, especially following “Swadeshi tech” endorsements by Indian leaders, has led to a 100-fold spike in daily sign-ups. Zoho has since accelerated infrastructure upgrades and feature development to keep pace with demand.

Vembu has emphasized that Arattai is designed for inclusivity—built to run smoothly on low-end smartphones and low-bandwidth networks, ensuring access for rural and underprivileged users.

On privacy, Zoho states that user data for Indian customers is stored in Indian data centers, and that end-to-end encryption for calls is already implemented, with message encryption under active development.

In a recent message, Vembu assured users: “We have a lot more planned for Arattai. Please give us some time. Thank you for your patience and support! Jai Hind.”