 "Inshorts launches Hindi app")
Mobile application Inshorts, which offers news reports summarised in 60 words or less, is looking to make inroads into the vernacular mobile market with the launching of a Hindi interface on its app. The news start-up will consider expanding to offer content in other regional languages like Marathi, Kannada and Tamil by mid-2016, depending on the success of in Hindi service.
Commenting on the launch of the Hindia app, Azhar Iqubal, chief executive and co-founder of Inshorts, said on Thursday: “The vernacular space on mobile is very exciting and we are making our first move in this market with the launch of Inshorts Hindi. Inshorts is designed to make it convenient for the youth to catch up on important news items of the day and we are confident that our value offering will resonate with the 422 million Hindi-speaking Indians.”
He added: “With more than 3 million downloads, our app currently gets most of its users from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Chennai. With the Hindi launch, we hope to tap Tier-II cities like Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Bhopal, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, etc, and aim to increase our reach by 5 million users by April 2016.”
Also, Inshorts is planning to recruit over 100 content writers for Hindi by the first quarter of calendar 2016. The content of the Hindi app will be customised to suit the Hindi-speaking audience and will be different from the English version. The start-up is also looking at launching an intuitive content recommendation engine designed to intelligently curate significant and relevant news on the basis of audience interest and behaviour, trending topics and real-time article performance.
Commenting on the launch of the Hindia app, Azhar Iqubal, chief executive and co-founder of Inshorts, said on Thursday: “The vernacular space on mobile is very exciting and we are making our first move in this market with the launch of Inshorts Hindi. Inshorts is designed to make it convenient for the youth to catch up on important news items of the day and we are confident that our value offering will resonate with the 422 million Hindi-speaking Indians.”
He added: “With more than 3 million downloads, our app currently gets most of its users from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Chennai. With the Hindi launch, we hope to tap Tier-II cities like Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Bhopal, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, etc, and aim to increase our reach by 5 million users by April 2016.”
Also, Inshorts is planning to recruit over 100 content writers for Hindi by the first quarter of calendar 2016. The content of the Hindi app will be customised to suit the Hindi-speaking audience and will be different from the English version. The start-up is also looking at launching an intuitive content recommendation engine designed to intelligently curate significant and relevant news on the basis of audience interest and behaviour, trending topics and real-time article performance.