SoftBank-backed WhatsApp rival Hike goes off the air in India

A girl and a woman check a mobile phone in front of a mural representing frontline warriors of the Covid-19 coronavirus, painted on a wall along the roadside in New Delhi on December 19, 2020, as India surged past 10 million coronavirus cases. (Photo by Sajjad HUSSAIN / AFP)

Hike, the messaging app backed by SoftBank Group Corp that aimed to compete against WhatsApp in the world’s second-most populous country, shut down and vanished from app stores on Jan 18.

The startup valued at US$1.4bil (RM5.67bil) 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 Inc’s rival app as India’s go-to venue for social media and mobile communications. The country remains WhatsApp’s largest market globally.