Hike Messenger Voice Calling Feature Arrives; WhatsApp Still Ain't Got It

India's biggest instant messaging rivals include the likes of WhatsApp, Viber and Hike. While Viber has been offering voice calling feature for quite some time, it was recently in news that voice calling on WhatsApp might arrive soon, when leaked images appeared online. Well, beating WhatsApp at the cut-throat competition, Hike has announced the arrival of the voice calling (VoIP) service for the messenger app. Hike is a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Softbank, a Japanese telecom corporation. It has to be noted here that Hike recently received a big round of funding ($65 million) led by Tiger Global.

The app that boasts of more than 35 million users worldwide is offering the voice calling feature with extreme data efficiency, support for more than 200 countries and complete privacy. You can make voice calls through Hike Messenger app on your smartphone's 2G, 3G and WiFi connectivity. The company promises that they will go light on data usage and therefore have shared that on 2G Hike uses 2 KB/s, on 3G it uses 2.5 KB/s and Wi-fi it uses up to 7 KB/s.

Other than the voice calling feature, Hike Messenger comes with a bundle of good features which include ability to send regional stickers, a 'Hidden Mode' that lets you keep some messages password protected, a 'Hike Offline' mode which when turned on lets the app device if your friends are offline, so that your messages are sent as an SMS at no extra cost and a 128-bit SSL encryption over WiFi.

That said, we would like to know if you and your friends are ready to switch from WhatsApp to Hike or if you already are, how is the experience? Share your thoughts and opinions with us in comments below.

Source: Hike Messenger