Bharti scion’s ‘Hike’ into instant messaging mkt

Mumbai: Bharti SoftBank Holdings (BSB) — spearheaded by Kavin Bharti Mittal, one of the twin sons of billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal — is entering the fastgrowing mobile instant messaging market, taking on the likes of Blackberry messenger and Whatsapp. 

    Hike, which is being launched globally, comes after six months of BSB buying a 49% equity stake in a Gurgaon-based mobile start-up Y2CF Digital. In an interaction with TOI, the Bharti scion said the mobile app market in India is currently fragmented, which is where Hike will look to come in and plug the gap. The JV will also launch a mobile portal in association with Yahoo! Japan early next year and make an announcement on the gaming front soon. 
    "In the last couple of years, instant messaging has taken over SMS in a big way as operators see revenues decline or remain largely stagnant. Currently, there are five-six different services and no one app ties everyone together. Hike is an attempt to make that happen," said the 26-year-old Mittal who heads strategy and new product development at BSB. Hike, a cross-platform messaging service, will also allow users to send messages to people who have not downloaded the app in the form of an SMS. Mittal said he will be working with operators to introduce new revenue streams in order to monetize the app. This will mean tying up with operators on the billing front once the service gains critical mass. 
    The slow uptick of 3G in India has been one of the big deterrents for the growth of data-led services in the country, Mittal said. "In an emerging market, building data services is difficult. So the pace at which 3G is picking up affects everyone building mobile apps. But in the next two-three years, things will accelerate. It is a matter of when and not if," said the self-acclaimed tech enthusiast who has interned at McLaren Racing, Google and Goldman Sachs. 
    The mobile data services market is projected to grow to Rs 67,100 crore by 2015, according to a recent report by Internet and Mobile Association of India, and will contribute 54% of telecom revenue. 
    Talking about the targets set for BSB's location-based service Hoppr and justlaunched Hike, without giving any specific number of the traffic coming in, Mittal said, "We believe that 10 million is the new one million." BSB is an equal joint venture between telecom-to-retail conglomerate Bharti Enterprises and Japanese communications major SoftBank Corp, which was announced in October last year to build digital consumer properties across mobile, internet, gaming and social media.