Can Hike Messenger compete with WhatsApp?
After this whole era of paid SMS exchanging, emailing, and chatting through our computers, we have come a long way on the communication rail. And now, WhatsApp has become an integral app in Smartphones over the past few years; making free online chatting popular beyond expectation. There are other Android apps too such as Facebook Messenger, Viber, WeChat, Line, and Hike Messenger. But Hike Messenger has been stealing some of the Indian users off WhatsApp lately. And hence, raises the unavoidable debate over whether Hike can compete with WhatsApp.
First of all, since Hike is quite similar to the hybrid of WhatsApp and Instagram, it seems to have borrowed the best features of both. While it is a free online chatting app, it also has users customizing their own timelines along with giving them the option to like other people’s posts and photos.
Hike has a plethora of stickers, much like the Facebook Messenger. The best part is that they come in regional languages too. They are fun and quirky with the easy ability to light up any conversation. Honestly, that is what really attracts the audience. Not just the stickers, it has a hell lot of Emoji than WhatsApp. There is a tongue hanging face in like 3-4 styles. That is kind of confusing and sounds vain, though.
Hike seems to adapt every feature of WhatsApp and then add a little cherry on top. Could we not change our background themes for the chats in WhatsApp? But Hike offered to change background themes for every individual user. Hike also provides about a 100 free SMS quota that we can also send to non-Hike users.
To encourage more and more people to join the Hike app, they began throwing effective baits. The most attractive one was free talk-time. Its whole referral bonus idea was a huge hit. Another bait is the plenty of free coupons it gives every day for popular brands, online stores, and apps like Dominoes, Amazon, Myntra, Yepme, getMecab, etc.
And guess what? While WhatsApp allows a meagre of 16MB data transfer, Hike permits 100 MB/file. Hike has better privacy settings too with its 128-bit SSL encryption.And since all this was clearly not enough, and we still worship WhatsApp, Hike has trivial games to chase away boredom, everyday quote delivery, and a hilariously cute feature ‘Natasha on Hike’ who is like a virtual friend. And believe me, she can come handy when you are in a tight position and need to pretend to be talking to an important person; she even does a fake call to get you out of it.
Hike keeps doing new things to drag users to it on special occasions like the Valentine’s Day game and also lovelock for singles to find love.
And the rumour mills say that Bharti Mittal’s son is planning to put up grocery apps too. In fact, Hike has been trying to stretch its tentacles way too far. A single Indian app is trying to provide a platform for free chatting as well as book tickets at our nearest cinemas.
The only thing is that, if and when you join Hike or if you already are, you realize that a major part of your gang is still missing. Since it is not a global app like WhatsApp, its user base is still really small comparatively. So, WhatsApp wins the battle. But will Hike win the war? Time can only tell.
