Nimbuzz shifted its base of operations from Netherlands to India in 2012. Today, they have launched an app to detect the incoming caller’s identity aptly named as Holaa.
A Nielsen study last year which found that 84 percent of smartphone users in India have pre-paid connections – the highest percentage for any country in the world. Now, with a number this great, there come a lot many spammer troubles as well. The problem in a predominantly pre-paid phone connection market like India is that caller identities are often a mystery. So people end up taking a lot of unwanted calls and spam.
This is where Holaa comes in. While the swedish offering Truecaller currently ruling the Indian app market, it has failed to garner a lot of popularity in the West. Holaa is a free call management app designed to replace the default on your Android phone. Offering a bucketload of features, it was proudly made in India by local developers.
According to sources at TechCrunch, Nimbuzz intends to use a range of strategies to distribute Holaa, including promotion via the Nimbuzz app, deals with operators, and alliances with OEMs to pre-install it on phones.
It has a number of other features, such as location-tracking and synchronization of social media and phone contacts. This will raise privacy concerns for many, but the popularity of Truecaller in India suggests that unknown calls are more of a pain for phone users there. Four out of 10 calls that a pre-paid mobile user receives are from unknown numbers, and a quarter of those unknown calls are spam, points out Saxena.
Holaa is the first product launched by Nimbuzz following its recent acquisition by UK-based New Call Telecom for US$175 million. Vikas Saxena, CEO of Nimbuzz, explains how this app identifies and meets specific consumer needs of the region:
Our experience in emerging markets gives us insights into user behavior and allows us to deliver a more optimized product. To give you an example, Holaa! is 30 percent smaller in app size than Truecaller and 30 percent less RAM intensive. This means the application can be downloaded across a wider variety of devices, including the lower end handsets, and ensures minimum impact on the phone’s battery.
Nigel Eastwood, CEO of New Call Telecom, during an official press release said-
With Nimbuzz becoming a part of the growing New Call International family, its innovative technologies will become a key part of our vision of an integrated ‘my digital life’ ecosystem
Due to a lot of iOS restrictions imposed by Apple, Holaa is currently Android only, however, we are told that a toned down iOS version is also in the works. Stay tuned for a comprehensive review of the app only on Apps 360 by TechPortal!
