Driven by India, Nimbuzz eyes 400 million users by 2014

Instant messaging platform Nimbuzz expects the Indian marketto be one of the main drivers in touching the 400-million user base mark in thenext two years.

The company had recently announced crossing the 100 millionuser mark across 80 countries, entering the league of top 20 most-used internetplatforms in mobile and Web communications space.

"With a 100 million strong user base, the target now isto double user base each year in the next two years to reach 400 million by2014-end," Nimbuzz CEO Vikas Saxena told PTI.

He added that about 25 per cent of the targeted number isexpected to come from India.

Of the 100 million users, the company claims that India has17 million users; followed by the US at 6.5 million users, Middle East (30million); South Asia (14 million); Africa (13 million) and Europe (10 million).

"India has been a strong market for us and we have seenstrong adoption across platforms, especially Android. While in earlier days,the numbers were coming from the application being pre bundled, the additionsare now coming from people downloading the application on theirsmartphones," Saxena said.

He added that the company is working on a slew of new productsto engage users and drive the user base. Saxena said the additions werepan-India but increasing traction is being seen in regions like Delhi,Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

Nimbuzz counts What's App, Blackberry messenger, Skype, WeChatand Yahoo messenger as rival platforms across the world.

It has received USD 25 million in venture capital and strategicfunding from Mangrove Capital Partners (investors in Skype) and Naspers/MIH(investors in Tencent and Mail.ru).

Founded in 2006 in the Netherlands, Nimbuzz moved its globalheadquarters to Gurgaon earlier this year.

The company has a delivery and development centre in Gurgaon.While half of its 160 employees are based in India, the remaining 80 are spreadacross Argentina and the Netherlands.