Competition in instant messaging is intensifying, with two of the most popular applications expanding their offerings to stand out in a crowded market.
Rakuten Group company Viber on Tuesday rolled out Public Chats, its latest feature that allows users to discover, share and interact with conversations, communities and content on mobile. India is the largest market for Viber, which has 33 million users here among 460 million users worldwide.
The Netherlands-headquartered Nimbuzz on the same day announced the launch of a new call management application, Holaa. The application competes against TrueCaller, a Sweden-based service popular in India because of the country’s estimated 85 per cent pre-paid mobile users.
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WhatsApp has about 70 million users in India, the second-biggest market for the world’s largest instant messaging application. Facebook, which acquired WhatsApp earlier this year, has more than 100 million Indian users.
Nigel Eastwood, chief executive officer of New Call Telecom, said Holaa was developed in India by a team of 13 developers. “This is the first ‘Made in India’ application from New Call. We will be bringing more communication services keeping in mind the Indian audience,” Eastwood added.
Holaa can identify a caller's name, photograph, location and email address during an incoming call. The application also helps block spam calls. Holaa has similarities with another application called 6Degrees. “Holaa was developed keeping in mind that four out of every 10 incoming calls are from unknown numbers, and at least one of them is spam,” said Vikas Saxena, chief executive of Nimbuzz.
Holaa allows users to search details of people based on phone numbers. Registered users are alerted if a caller is marked spammer by other members of the Holaa community. It allows phonebook synchronisation with Facebook and Google. Holaa will be available on Android devices, which are used by over 95 per cent of pre-paid mobile subscribers.
The service will also be launched in West Asia, a big market for Nimbuzz.
“We are not looking at revenue from Holaa at this point. Going forward, we will tap the small and medium enterprises segment. Nimbuzz has already become one of the most preferred advertising platforms for companies. There will be more features and more services from us,” Saxena added.
Public Chats are live discussions among celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar, Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh and brands on mobile devices that Viber users can follow. “Conversations are multi-media and include text, photos, audio, video, stickers, web links and more. Users can invite friends to follow the Public Chats that interest them, and can share content,” the company said in a statement.
“Some of the most popular chats already have hundreds of thousands of followers here, showing users are intrigued by the fly-on-the-wall experience. There is a great line-up of talent from India, and we are looking forward to adding more Public Chats over the coming weeks and months,” said Mark Hardy, chief marketing officer of Viber.
Viber earlier launched gaming services and paid sticker packs that generate revenue. Hardy, however, indicated Public Chats was unlikely to be a preferred revenue channel for the company in India soon. Viber’s revenue mainly comes from stickers that are sold for $1.99 each and Viber Out that allows users to call mobile phones at subsidised rates.
Instant messaging applications have been focussing on acquiring customers in India for the past year. Holding on to them will be critical over the next few quarters.