Hike messenger, one of India’s fastest growing internet companies has announced the introduction of Hike Direct, a game-changing proposition that will revolutionize the way people communicate. A first in the world and first in the category feature—hike direct, allows users to chat, exchange stickers, transfer photos and heavy files of any type, things that users would regularly do on hike without the Internet & without incurring data charges.
Hike Direct allows mobile phones to connect with one another directly within a 100 meter radius completely by passing the telecom networks. Users can then chat and share files directly up to a speed of 40 Mbps with very low latency, which is comparable if not better than 4G speeds promised by telecom companies today. For example, exchanging 100 MB of data would take less than 10 seconds on hike direct, more importantly without incurring any data charges.
Speaking on the launch, Kavin Mittal, Founder & CEO hike messenger added
Today is the day we completely redefine messaging. Hike Direct has been built on breakthrough technology that adds a whole new dimension to messaging enabling hikers to chat and share files with their friends without the internet and without incurring any data charges. One can get speeds up to 40 Mbit/sec when chatting and sharing files through hike direct. Data or no data, hike will always work. It’s incredibly powerful.
The all – new ‘Hike Direct’ is built from the ground up with a new generation of network solutions and uses WiFi Direct technology systems that help establish peer to peer network connection between two phones.
To use hike direct, users simply need to open a chat with a friend and choose Hike Direct from the 3 dot menu on top right of the screen and hike does the rest. Hike automatically pairs up with the other phone and lets you chat and share files with your friends without the internet.
Users can get this feature by upgrading to the latest version of Hike, version 4.0.6 and above, which is available free on the Google Play Store starting today. Hike Direct on iOS, Windows to follow next year.
The company also announced that it crossed 70 million users last month with 20 billion messages being exchanged per month making it by far the 2nd largest messaging app in the country. An average user on hike spends over 140 minutes per week on the application.
The all new hike has recently been upgraded to 4.0 version with best in class features developed to deliver greater value to users such as news, hindi news bytes, localized stickers in 30 languages, automatic sticker suggestions, Group calling, Group chat upto 500 members, 100 MB file sharing and many more.
Hike’s Growth Story
- Dec 2012 – Global launch
- Feb 2013 – Messaging traffic grows 10X week on week
- April 2013 – Hit the first 5M user milestone in just 4 months of its launch | Raised $7M from BSB
- Feb 2014 – Hit the 15M user mark
- April 2014 – Received $14M fresh funding from BSB
- June 2014 – Crossed 20M user mark, launched first TVC
- July 2014 – Hit #1 rank on App stores
- August 2014 – Crossed 35M user mark, receives $65M fresh funding led by Tiger Global & BSB
- November 2014 – Launches regional stickers on hike
- January 2015 – Launched free Hike Calls
- February 2015 – Launched Cricket Scores on hike
- Aug 2015: Hike announces 20 billion messages per month and launched Hike News
- Sep 2015: Launched Group Calling with upto 100 people
Do give Hike Direct a spin & share your experience in the comments section