Ted Livingston, chief executive at Kik, wrote online: “As the maker of QQ and WeChat, it was clear [Tencent] understood chat deeply, making them a great sounding board”.
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Waterloo, Ontario-based Kik has over 200 million registered users for its Kik messenger mobile app.
Kik is valued at $1 billion with the investment from the Chinese technology giant, the Canadian company said Tuesday in a statement.
The investment put the company’s worth at US$120.5 million, pulling it into unicorn territory (companies worth more than US$1 billion).
A new report by the Pew Research Center claims that 36% of Americans who own smartphones use messaging apps like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Kik.
But, with Facebook remaining the most popular social media service in the world, social messaging is free and globally used, but even though Twitter is very successful it has not attracted more users than Facebook since last September.
Livingston declined to say when Kik might turn a profit. WeChat users can also do things like shop, book taxis, order food, pay bills, play games and follow celebrities. “That has always been our vision, but Tencent had already made it real”. “And really what we’re looking at as a model for that is what’s happening in China with WeChat”.
WeChat has about 400 million active users in China.
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Founded in 2009, Kik was born out of a moment that is now seen as one of the more profound stepping stones in BlackBerry’s downfall. “And with so much of their focus on winning China, they would support Kik running independently to win the US”. Kik’s director of platform services, Paul Gray, told CBC News. “Consumers and developers alike are suffering from app overload, and we are increasingly seeing the potential for services to be delivered in better, lighter-weight ways through chat, especially with bots”.
