NEW DELHI: India-based messaging app Hike has beaten WhatsApp to the punch and updated its Android app with a free voice-calling feature. Hike says it currently has over 35 million users, with 90 percent in India. However, Hike has set its sights on expanding internationally and has made voice-calling available in over 200 countries. The function will be added to the company’s iOS and Windows Phone apps by the end of the quarter.
Zip Phone allows users to make Wi-Fi enabled phone calls, and when Hike bought the U.S. startup for an undisclosed sum, CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal said it was with the express intention of incorporating voice-calling into the Hike messaging app.
Implementing free voice-calling is a major victory for the Indian company, which was launched as a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Japan’s Softbank.
WhatsApp, which was purchased by Facebook last year in a deal exceeding $19 billion, is the most popular messaging app in India, with over 70 million monthly active users, which equates to 10 percent of its global user base. WhatsApp promised consumers voice-calling by early 2015, but details are vague regarding exactly when.
Like Hike’s other features, its voice-calling utility is designed to be as data-efficient as possible since India is a cost sensitive market.
“It means our users can pack in many more minutes per MB when calling on Hike,” the company wrote on its blog. The service is also described as being “optimized for low bandwidth networks.”
