It’s our own little way of bringing the convenience of our technology to more people. With this special offer, we hope we’ll be able to help them reach out to family, friends, colleagues, or anyone in the world, even those who don’t have Viber yet. “Offering free calls to our Filipino users is our response to their increasing demand for high quality, crystal clear calls even with non-Viber users. “Innovation and our users will always be at the center of everything we do at Viber,” says David Tse, Rakuten Viber’s senior director for APAC. Free Viber calls will also be available in countries that have growing Filipino communities like Hong Kong, Kuwait, and Singapore. The Philippines is one of the first markets in the world to enjoy this special offer, as it is the messaging app’s key growth area in the Asia Pacific with a 50% increase in voice calls in 2021. With this new offer, Filipino users are now able to enjoy longer calls to any number in 60 countries around the world. Viber has been allowing its users to get in touch with loved ones, coworkers, or businesses who don’t have a smartphone or access to the internet by simply subscribing to an affordable calling plan. Viber, one of the world’s leading apps for free and easy communication, is giving its Filipino users more ways to stay connected with their family, friends, or colleagues wherever they are in the world by offering them free 30 minutes of calls to any mobile or landline number every month. There are cases when mobile network codes are occupied not by mobile carriers, but government structures (military, railway, landline phone authorities). The same, of course, could happen to this story, although Calcalist has a knack of learning about acquisitions of Israeli companies (or in this case, companies started by Israelis with a development center there) early on.Viber is offering Filipino users free monthly 30-minute calls However, last year we picked up on rumours that the company was set to raise a monster first round totalling up to $100 million - although this seemingly never came to fruition. It is made primarily in development centers in Belarus and Israel, although the company's headquarters are in Cyprus.Īs mentioned earlier, Viber has never raised funding, in sharp contrast with other Western rivals such as WhatsApp and Kik. Late last year, Viber launched its 'Viber Out' calling service, which allows its users to make low-cost calls to mobile and landline phones worldwide from within its mobile apps. Today, the software is available for Mac OS, Android, BlackBerry OS, iOS, Series 40, Symbian, Bada, Windows Phone, and Microsoft Windows. Viber founders Talmon Marco and Igor Magazinik first launched an iPhone app back in December 2010 - I remember billing it as an instant Skype rival (and calling it 'amazingly amazing'). Update 4: Now Globes weighs in, pegging the price at $500m-$600m. IS VIBER ONLINE STATUS ACCURATE ANDROID Signal is the overall winner for both iOS and Android users. Signal created an encryption protocol that is now recognized as the most secure messaging app protocol out there. Update 3: Also check out Geektime's take on the topic. It offers everything most users need SMS, video and voice calls, group chats, file sharing, disappearing messages, etc. Update 2: Haaretz reports the story as well, noting that Viber approached investment banking firm Goldman Sachs to help it find a buyer about six months ago. Update: Viber, unsurprisingly, tells us it does not comment on rumours. Names were not shared, but the 'leading' IM companies in Asia are Tencent (WeChat/QQ), Line and KakaoTalk, and arguably Samsung with its ChatON app. To call Israel from the Skype app, just follow these dialing instructions: First type + 972. Viber is quite popular: in May 2013, when it last publicly shared user numbers, it had 200 million registered users.Īccording to Calcalist, the founders of Viber Media - who have pretty much bootstrapped the company and never raised an institutional round of financing - are currently engaged in acquisition talks with a 'leading IM company from Asia', where 67 million people reportedly use Viber today. If this feature is turned on, just leave out the country exit code. Viber Media, the company behind a range of mobile and desktop apps for calling and messaging, is being courted by an Asian IM company for an acquisition to the tune of $300 million to $400 million, Israeli business publication Calcalist reportedly early in the morning (in Hebrew). Important update: On Friday 14 February, Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten announced that it has acquired Viber for $900 million.
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