Instant messaging app Hike Messenger, later known as Hike Sticker Chat, has announced the shutdown of its operations.
“Today we are announcing that we will be sunsetting StickerChat in Jan 2021. We thank you all for giving us your trust. We wouldn’t be here without you. All your data will be available to download in the app,” Hike chief executive officer Kavin Bharti Mittal tweeted.
Kavin Mittal is the son of Sunil Mittal, the founder and chairman of Bharti Airtel.
Hike has removed the mobile app from Google Playstore and Apple’s App store. Hike had close to 100 million registered users by August 2016. Hike supported 10 regional Indian languages. Hike had 2 million monthly active users in December 2019. For comparison, Signal, an emerging messaging platform, added over 30 million installations just this month.
Hike said smartphone users can download their data inside the application. The announcement does not mean an end to other apps in development by the company.
The end of Hike’s messenger service comes at a time when Signal and Telegram have added tens of millions of users in recent weeks.
Hike, which went live in December 2012, was once regarded as a competition to global messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Viber.
Hike has raised over $260 million from investors, including Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings, manufacturing firm Foxconn Technology Group and the Bharti group.
