Hike Messenger crosses the 20 million-user mark adding 5 million users in the past 3 months alone

Hike is now one of the fastest growing mobile apps in India that has crossed the 20 million users milestone. The app’s user base has rose to 20 Million in 1.5 years of its launch; making Hike one of the fastest growing mobile applications from India. Launched globally in December 2012, the company went from 5 to 15M users in 9 months and the added to its base, the next 5M in just 3 short months. Close to 90% of the app’s users are from India and over 80% of its users are under the age of 25.

Hike stands out from its competitions by not using the conventional mode of advertising to acquire customers. It has relied heavily on word of mouth, referrals and most definitely localisation of features and services for the Indian market.

Commenting on the feat, Kavin Bharti Mittal, Head, Product and Strategy, Hike messenger, said, 

India has almost a 100M active mobile Internet users in the country and that number is growing rapidly every year. That’s the market, which we’re building for. The rate at which hike messenger has grown in the last 18 months is phenomenal and is a strong testament of the right direction in which the product is steering. We will continue to focus heavily on introducing new and innovative features to bridge the existing gaps in the IM market in India.

A big add-on to hike’s unique features bouquet is the ‘Big File Transfer’ – equipping users to share all file formats, from Docs, PPTs, PDFs to MP3s, of up to a 100MB each, surpassing the attachment limit of all IM apps and even email clients. Hike users no longer have to share files via emails or transfer over SD Cards.

• Multiple-Select: Send up to 20 files together.
• Big Files (100MB): Send files up to a 100MB each. Now that’s what you call big.
• DOCs, PDFs, PPTs, MP3s: Send all kind of files including docs, MP3s, pdfs, ppts and much more!

The company also announced the availability of industry first; exciting new feature – ‘Hidden Mode’ – that helps users keep their private chats hidden from others.

Further Kavin adds,

Today, we’re also excited to announce 'Hidden Mode' in hike. You can now hide your private chats, such that no one even knows they're hidden, and access them only with the right password. In a country like India, where teenagers stay with their parents and families; where their need for privacy is constantly challenged; we believe this feature could be a boon for all our users. We're building these entire new features basis the feedback of our beta-users called the hike ninjas. This approach is working really well for us and going forward we expect it to help us grow even faster.

Let's take a look at Hike's timeline since launch:

Dec, 2012: Global launch

Feb 2013: Messaging traffic grows 10X week on week

April 2013: Hits the first 5M user milestone in just 4 months of its launch | Raised $7mn from BSB

June 2013: STICKERS! Stickers launched on Hike to increase user engagement.

Aug 2013: Digital advertising campaign goes live

Nov 2013: Co-creation exercise with users – including real-time feedback from the users for product development

Dec 2013: Hike turns 1 year old! Launches two-way Chat Themes

Feb 2014: Hit the 15M crores user mark

April 2014: Receives $14M fresh funding from BSB

June 2014: Crossed 20M user mark

Hike represents the rise of product startups made in India for the global market. This seems to be a testament to the fact that India is maturing as a mobile-first product market given the huge mobile penetration.

Go check out the new update here.