Hike to launch multiple apps for a more focussed user experience

The multi-apps will be specialised apps that will help Hike solve singular problems with greater ease and efficacy, and focus on two core areas - social and content.

Social technology company Hike announced that it is looking to launch multiple apps through 2019 in continuation with its intent on focussing on Hike’s core - social and content. The company, currently, has more than 100 million downloads and has raised $175 million from Foxconn and Tencent.

Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO, said, “In 2019, we continue to double down on both Social and Content but we’re going to do it with an evolved approach. We’re going to do it across multiple apps. That means, in 2019 we’re going to go from building a Super App that will encompass everything, to Multiple Apps solving one thing really well.”

These multi apps will be specialised apps aimed at solving singular problems with greater ease and efficacy. They will be focussed on the two pillars of Hike - content and social and will be executed through a step by step evolved approach.

Kavin added, “These are the two pillars of Hike with our users continuing to spend over 30 minutes per day on the platform and these remain spaces that have tremendous potential given the sheer scale and diversity of India. We are literally just scratching the surface.”

Since 2018, Hike has focussed on simplifying its application, especially around these two pillars. Its multi apps are going to be designed by taking the core parts of the main Hike product and remoulding them into creating new apps, each tailored to deliver one service. Users will be able to continue using the current Hike app or seamlessly migrate to the new apps for a more focused experience as they get launched.

According to Kavin, “Unbundling Hike into multiple apps focused on doing one thing allows us more room in the pixels to deliver much more around one problem. Moving to a Multi App Strategy no longer restricts us to a specific segment of the market. This is going to allow us to explore different parts of the market which is important given a significant number of new internet users have come from an older age demographic previously un-targeted by Hike.”

The app became popular with teenagers because of its stickers, and was launched at the same time as WhatsApp came to India.

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