The Covid-19 pandemic has brought a lot of uncertainties in many industries. While losses are countless and impactful, the wins though not as many have also provided a ray of hope amid gloomy business forecasts.
However, the first half of 2020 brought a new set of experiences for the Rakuten Viber team, but also a new set of milestones, said a press release.
Compared to the 2019 data, Viber has recorded an increase of usage in Bangladesh during the first half of 2020, with a 17% increase in activations, a 21% increase in sending group messages, and 25% in one to one message. The number of messages sent in a group experienced robust growth as well, with a 48% rise, while community Views increased to 77%.
Similarly, the rest of the region experience accelerated activity, especially when it comes to communicating within Groups and Communities. Countries in the Asia-Pacific saw strong growth in the number of messages sent within Viber groups compared to 2019—Myanmar at 41%, Nepal at 67%, Sri Lanka at 91%, Vietnam at 43% and Philippines at 95%. Community Engagement similarly grew, with most countries almost doubling their numbers of Community Views, Myanmar at 106% growth, Sri Lanka at 118%, and Nepal at 195%, respectively. In the Philippines, Community engagement experienced robust growth as well, with a 2.5x increase in community viewers and 2.7x growth in messages sent within Communities.
With a bold vision to be a lifetime app, Viber has added several new user-centric features since the start of 2020 to complement the lives of users and provide them with a better app experience. My Notes enabled users to sync their to-do lists and media across all their devices. Birthday reminders began appearing on users’ home pages to make it easier for them to know which of their contacts was celebrating their special day. Disappearing messages allowed people to set a limit to the lifespan of sensitive texts, while the one-of-a-kind GIF Creator brought out everyone’s inner creativity with its easy process of turning phone videos into GIFs.
