Hike just found a way to reach more people in India than WhatsApp

Photo credit: Stefano

We’re ringing in 2016 in under 10 days, but Hike’s not quite finished with 2015 yet.

After a slew of growth announcements this year, including new features and hints that it might be making a move to become more of a WeChat-like multi-purpose messaging app, Hike has managed to squeeze in another news item to its list. Today, India’s homegrown instant messenger announced the launch of its app in eight Indian vernacular languages. Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu all have a place on the newest version of the app, which will be launched tomorrow for Android phones.

The app will now allow Indians to communicate with their contacts in their native languages, erasing English as a requirement for the app. The multi-lingual interface will be accompanied by a corresponding keyboard for each of the languages. Each included language comes with predictive text technology (think autocomplete) and a fun spin with stickers for each of the languages.

This push toward multilingual support shows the startup wants to reach a wider audience in India in its battle against WhatsApp and Facebook, and push forward its brand as a localized mobile messaging service for India.

“One cannot build for India without understanding the enormous diversity in the country,” said Hike CEO and founder Kavin Bharti Mittal in a statement. “This is another big step towards catering to that diversity to bring India online.”

See: The search for India’s answer to WeChat