Hike, the messaging app backed by SoftBank Group that aimed to compete against WhatsApp in the world’s second-most populous country, shut down and vanished from app stores Monday. From a report: The startup valued at $1.4 billion in a 2016 funding round announced its app was going off the air earlier this month without explanation. The app started by billionaire-family scion Kavin Bharti Mittal has failed over several years to displace Facebook’s rival app as India’s go-to venue for social media and mobile communications. The country remains WhatsApp’s largest market globally. Hike, backed also by Chinese WeChat-operator Tencent Holdings, has in recent years ventured into adjacent areas such as no-frills phones and expanded even into spheres such as mobile entertainment. On Jan. 6, Mittal — son of Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of India’s No. 2 telecom carrier, Bharti Airtel Ltd. — announced the closure of Hike StickerChat.
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https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/01/18/1516205/softbank-backed-whatsapp-rival-hike-goes-off-the-air-in-india?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed