With an aim to build for a largely sight and sound country that is India, Hike Messenger, India’s only home grown and second largest messaging platform, has launched video calling feature for its users.
Video calling, the beta of which was rolled out in September this year to a select set of less than a hundred thousand, will now begin to roll-out to the entire user-base starting with Android users this week.
Simple, Reliable and High Quality Video Calling Experience, Even In Challenging Network Conditions : Video calling on Hike is a simple and easy to use feature that works on a single tap that is integrated into chat threads with friends. The feature has been built for a reliable and high quality video experience that works even under challenging network conditions, including good quality 2G.
Live Caller Preview : Another interesting aspect of video calling on Hike is the ability for a user to see a live video preview of the caller before answering the call. It’s quite a neat feature and adds to the fun of video calling.
Available Immediately to All Android Users; iOS to Follow Soon : Hike video calling is available immediately on Android. If users updated their Hike Messenger in September this year, video calling would have automatically been enabled for them and will now be accessible!
The evolution of communication on Hike : Hike continues to be loved by its users for its chat experience with its 10,000+ hyper-localized stickers in 40+ languages. Hike also launched one-on-one and group (100 member) audio calls in September 2015. Introduction of video calls one year later, today, makes for an even better friction-free, sight and sound communication experience.
Commenting on the launch, Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO, Hike Messenger said
This was an obvious one and we’re excited to bring it to the market so quickly. We’ve been in beta for a few months and the results have been really positive. We’re now excited to roll this out across our entire user-base. We see India as primarily a sight and sound market-and we believe video calling will have a large impact on how people communicate inside of Hike.
In January 2016, Hike had announced that it has over 100 million users. 95% of Hike users are based in India and 90% of them are young and below the age of 30. Hike users, on an average, exchange 40 billion messages per month and spend 120 minutes per user per week on the platform.
Hike has been built for these young consumers around 4 key pillars:
1. Data Constraints in India
2. Local Expressive Content
3. Deep Emphasis on Privacy
4. The Platform
To use video calling on Hike
1. Download Hike Messenger, if you don’s have it OR update Hike Messenger if you haven’t updated it since September.
2. Select the chat thread of a friend you want to connect with.
3. Just tap on the call button on the top right that prompts you to further select Voice or Video and start off your call.