Viber Media Inc., which has developed an application for smartphones, enabling users to make free phone calls and send free text messages on the back of Internet and wireless technology, today announced that it has surpassed 50 million users in just 13 months. Talmon Marco is the company's founder and CEO.
Viber's rate of growth compares favorably with its more famous rival Skype, which is today owned by Microsoft, and succeeded in reaching 54 million users in 30 months. However, when Skype started out there were no smartphones so the comparison is not entirely appropriate.
Viber has also presented another impressive statistic. Each month more than a billion minutes of calls are made using its free cellular app, which can be downloaded onto i-Phones or Androids. These billion minutes are used during 150 million calls. Viber users also send one billion text messages each month and 20 million pictures.
Viber is available in 193 countries and has 200,000 new users each month. The Israeli startup has its biggest number of users in the US, Spain, Japan, Korea and UK.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 13, 2012
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