Hike messaging app shuts down, removed from Play Store, here's why

Indian messaging app Hike Stickerchat has shut down its operations. The company's chief executive officer Kavin Bharti Mittal announced the shutdown of its operations on January 6.

The app has been removed from Playstore and Apple's App Store.

"Today we're announcing that we will be sunsetting StickerChat in Jan'21. We thank you all for giving us your trust. We wouldn’t be here without you. All your data will be available to download in the app," Mittal tweeted.

Moreover, the company had urged its users to export their chats to another messaging app by 11:59 pm on January 14, 2021.

"You can continue to reach us on care@hike.in for any issues till 15th Feb 2021," the statement read.

The messaging app was competing with the likes of WhatsApp, and other apps like Signal and Telegram. Hike's CEO has stated that Indian messaging apps cannot thrive unless the government bans western messaging companies.

This is a sad end to a platform that had millions users actively using the app. However, Mittal has still not disclosed the reason for shutting down operations.

Moreover, many users have expressed their concerns over the shutting down of the messaging app.

The app was launched globally on December 12, 2012. It had interesting features like stickers, themes, hidden chat option, free chat option. The app also had feature of 'Hike Wallet' to send and receive money in the most easiest manner. 

Apart from the wallet, Hike introduced the 'Blue Packets', which is simply a beautifully designed envelope that users can insert money into and send to their friends. Users can choose from over 10 different beautifully crafted envelopes and also add a personalised message to it to celebrate those special occasions. A Blue Packet can be sent to an individual or even a group of friends.

If you give Blue Packets to a group of your friends, you can have a little fun and select how many people in the group should get it. It works on a first come first serve basis and a Blue Packet when sent expires in 24 hours.

The news comes as WhatsApp updated its privacy policy on January 4, 2021, and made it compulsory for its users to accept its terms and conditions, failing which the accounts and services would be terminated after February 8, 2021 for the respective user. Due to the new privacy policy, many Whatsapp users are switching to Signal and Telegram.