Hike, the supported messaging app SoftBank Group Corp. which aimed to compete against WhatsApp in the world’s second-largest country, shutting down and disappearing from app stores Monday.
The $ 1.4 billion startup initially announced in its 2016 funding round that its app went off the air earlier in the month without explanation. The app started with scion billionaire-family Kavin Bharti Mittal having failed over several years The competing app of Facebook Inc. as India’s gateway for social media and mobile communication. The country remains the largest worldwide market for WhatsApp.
Hike, also backed by Chinese WeChat operator In recent years Tencent Holdings Ltd., has entered nearby areas such as non-frills phones and expanded into areas such as mobile entertainment. On January 6, Mittal – son of Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of India’s No. 2 telecom carrier, Bharti Airtel Limited – named the closure of Hike StickerChat.
The decline coincides with growing global backlash among tech experts, privacy advocates, billionaire entrepreneurs and government agencies against WhatsApp’s new policy for the right to share user data with the widest Facebook network.
Over the past year or so, Mittal has consistently diversified Hike into social and mobile products. His company will continue to develop their social media app Vibe and work on a new game product called Rush, he wrote on Twitter.
“India will not have its own messenger,” Mittal said write. “The effects of a global network are too strong (unless India bans Western companies.)
– Supported by Bhuma Shrivastava