Hike Messenger today announced, that its recent launch, Hike Direct, which allows users to chat, exchange stickers, transfer photos, videos and heavy files of any type and without internet, with zero data costs is picking up rapidly across India.
According to the company, since its launch less than 3 weeks ago, a total of 5 Crore MB of data has been transferred with users sharing approximately 180 MB data per day on Hike Direct, which is a potential saving in data costs of approximately Rs 2,000 per month per user.
Hike Direct allows mobile phones to connect with one another directly within a 100 meter radius completely bypassing the telecom networks. According to Hike, users can chat and share files directly up to a speed of 40Mbps with very low latency, which is comparable if not better than 4G speeds promised by telecom companies today. For example, exchanging 100MB of data would take less than 10 seconds on hike direct, more importantly without incurring any data charges.
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 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 will follow next year.
Hike 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.