Kik Messenger flies high with over 100 million users and 145 million Kik Cards installed by users. Canada-based Kik Interactive, makers of the personal messaging app, announced the achievement, Thursday, indicating that it will not be a pushover in the hot messaging wars.
Kik was established in 2009 and released the beta version of its messaging app in April of 2010 and caught the attention of two million users before the end of that year. By November 2012, Kick reached 30 million users and introduced web apps called Kik Cards. In April this year, the company reported that it had 50 million registered users and about 25 million downloads of Cards.
"For us, growth gets a really big bump over Thanksgiving, which is a combination of new devices and people being in a new social sphere and sharing their passion for Kik," Ted Livingston, Kik founder and chief executive officer, said.
"It's hard to know what exactly is prompting growth. I wouldn't say there's anyone coming to Kik just for Cards and not for the messaging platform, but what it does do is provide a way for people to look at it and say 'Look at all the fun things I can do with Kik that I can't do with any other messaging apps," Livingston added.
The company shows a lot of promise while it trails behind other messaging apps such as Line that has 270 million users and WeChat and WhatsApp that both have over 300 million users. Kik is also a very small company with only 28 employees.
Even the biggest social networks are trying to catch up with the personal messaging craze. Instagram now has its Instagram Direct while Twitter makes its Direct Message feature more attractive for users that do not want to post everything on public.
At the moment, Kik generates income from stickers and cut from in-app payments. It does not get anything yet from its Cards platform but the ease of updating the apps without having to worry about app store approvals spells its potentials.
"The thing we're really focused on is if can we be the company that ushers in the mobile web era," Livingston said. "The big thing about Tango and Line and all these guys ... it's not a platform, it's an ad network. At the end of the day, they're showing a list of apps you should install. We saw the same thing. But in terms of actually making the messaging experience better, it doesn't do that."
According to Kik Interactive, it has been pouring everything to improve its infrastructure so it will not have any issues handling its current user base and further growth.
