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A comment on Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App. Parent comment

Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by dsl on Thursday February 20, 2014 @02:27AM (#7269422)
As of today: Smartphones outsold feature phones for this first time ever in India. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/samsung-smartphones-outse...

From my personal experiences, international countries that have smartphone adoption use Viber, and the feature phone countries use WhatsApp.

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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by terhechte on Thursday February 20, 2014 @03:04AM (#7269560)
WhatsApp is also really strong here in Germany and other parts of Europe. More of my friends are on WhatsApp than Facebook (only very few more though).
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by Kurtz79 on Thursday February 20, 2014 @05:39AM (#7270066)
In Spain and Italy "sending a Whatsapp" is almost as idiomatic as "Googling something".

It has basically replaced texting. Even my mom use it, which for me it's the definition of "wildly popular".

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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by danieldk on Thursday February 20, 2014 @03:36AM (#7269662)
Also in the Netherlands. E.g. in June 2013, 75% of the smartphone users used WhatsApp daily. Moreover, more than three quarter of the Dutch citizens has a smartphone.

So, WhatsApp is definitely used in high-profit markets as well.

Source: http://www.nu.nl/tech/3506473/whatsapp-heeft-kwart-miljard-a...

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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by sschueller on Thursday February 20, 2014 @03:47AM (#7269693)
These numbers are going to drop significantly now. Everyone I talk to is unhappy about the acquisition and will switch to something else like telegram.
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by ville on Thursday February 20, 2014 @05:02AM (#7269965)
I'd say more than 99.9% of WhatsApp users haven't heard of Telegram.

WhatsApp users are mostly not early adopters like you and your friends. They are ordinary people, because WhatsApp is is a simple communication tool targeted to everyone. And that's why they keep doubling their user base.

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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by krisgenre on Thursday February 20, 2014 @04:49AM (#7269915)
Unless Facebook actually puts their logo on WhatsApp, hardly anyone would notice. The tech community is minuscule compared to the large number of non-tech people using WhatsApp.
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by Jare on Thursday February 20, 2014 @05:55AM (#7270117)
The uproar in Spain about WhatsApp switching to $1 per year was huge, noisy and... emphemeral. Line got a lot of new signups for a few weeks, but the only person I know that still considers using Line today didn't even have WhatsApp back then (but, like everyone else, does have it now).
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by enewcomer on Thursday February 20, 2014 @04:46AM (#7269899)
Unless everybody switches, few will switch. Network effects also create some pretty powerful stickiness.
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by pjmlp on Thursday February 20, 2014 @04:15AM (#7269789)
I live in Germany and must be a very poor soul as I only know one person with WhatsApp and dozens with Viber.
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by eru on Thursday February 20, 2014 @05:26AM (#7270030)
My (German) mom just asked about WhatsApp. So it must be mainstream.
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by pjmlp on Thursday February 20, 2014 @06:56AM (#7270306)
Most likely because it is showing on the news everywhere?
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by eru on Thursday February 20, 2014 @08:11PM (#7274825)
Could be. I haven't been in Germany for 4 years now.
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by ghshephard on Thursday February 20, 2014 @02:32AM (#7269438)
Singapore is a Smartphone country, but Whatsapp is pretty dominant there. (I didn't run into anyone who didn't use it as their primary messaging platform)
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by thaumasiotes on Thursday February 20, 2014 @03:41AM (#7269677)
In China, it seems to be Wechat. I had never heard of WhatsApp.
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by rabino on Thursday February 20, 2014 @02:47AM (#7269487)
Same in Argentina
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by yen223 on Thursday February 20, 2014 @04:39AM (#7269882)
Same up here in Malaysia. In fact, it's starting to look like the only places that isn't dominated by WhatsApp are America and China.
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by dba7dba on Thursday February 20, 2014 @12:45PM (#7272308)
You forgot china/Skorea/Japan, all big markets.

WeChat - china

S Korea - kakaotalk 90% market share

LINE - Japan 50 million users with 300 million worldwide

And all three have significant revenue in double digit US millions a year, unlike WhatsApp which has no real revenue...

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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by skinnymuch on Thursday February 20, 2014 @01:24PM (#7272601)
Whatsapp has revenue in the double digit US millions per year. Their profit might even be in that range.
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Re:Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App by dba7dba on Thursday February 20, 2014 @12:26PM (#7272133)
KakaoTalk is big in S Korea. LINE is big in Japan. LINE has 300 million users, with 50 million in Japan.

As far as I know, both are very profitable through sales of digital goods like stickers etc.

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