Sri Lanka-based mobile phone company Hutch will offer instant messaging app Nimbuzz to its customers in the country free of charge, an offer that would be made available to all Hutch customers for a period of six months starting this month, an offer that should strengthen Nimbuzz’s presence in the country.
Nimbuzz currently has 150 million total users worldwide and has been pushing growth in Asia recently with a deal between it and Mobilink back in April.
“Hutch is extremely committed to creating the highest value offering for the end user,” said Thirukumar Nadarasa, CEO of Hutchinson Telecommunications Lanka. “Mobile messaging is gaining great popularity across the world and Sri Lanka too is a part of this revolution. Our partnership with Nimbuzz aims at making communication more affordable and convenient.”
Nimbuzz has been actively looking at making deals with carriers in the region, who have been losing SMS revenues because of popular messaging apps like Nimbuzz, WhatsApp and LINE. Viber also recently inked a deal with Mobilink while Nimbuzz partnered with Aircel in India.