Canada-based Kik Messenger has just announced that it has reached 200 million registered users, which are spread out among Android, iOS, and Windows Phone platforms. This is a growth of 100 million users since December 2013.
“Thinking about how much we’ve grown is pretty wild, and without the help of our incredible users we wouldn’t be where we are today. You’re the reason we keep doing what we’re doing, and from the bottom of our hearts, we’d like to say thank you.”
This is quite a milestone, though it still pales in comparison to WhatsApp’s 600 million active users and WeChat’s nearly 500 million active user count. More recently, Viber surpassed 209 million active users. Other heavy hitters include Skype and Tango.
“We recently commissioned a study that showed Kik users spend 35 minutes per session in our app,” said Kik CEO Ted Livingston. “That compares to 37 minutes for Facebook, 27 minutes for Instagram, and 21 minutes for Snapchat. According to BI Intelligence, Kik users spend 97 minutes a week in the app, ahead of Snapchat (42 minutes), Viber (40 minutes), and Facebook Messenger (21 minutes). Those are the sorts of numbers that get us excited.”
Kik has not updated its Windows Phone app since 2012
One glaring issue with Kik that’s become intimately familiar with nearly 100 million potential users is the fact that Kik has not updated its Windows Phone app since 2012 and as far as we know it has no plans to do so. Meanwhile, both WeChat and WhatsApp have continued to deliver updates to their apps on the platform, which could arguably explain at least in part why they are currently more popular overall as many users get frustrated with the lack of updates.
For those on iOS and Android, Kik can deliver oodles of features with its webkit-based Cards system. Kik can be downloaded using these QR codes.