India is a test-bed for our global rollouts: Vikas Saxena

Q&A with CEO of Nimbuzz

Instant messaging platform Nimbuzz is gung ho about the booming mobile Internet market worldwide. The company, which recently crossed the 100-million user base mark globally, had in 2011 shifted its global headquarters from the Netherlands to Gurgaon in India.

In an interview, Nimbuzz chief executive officer Vikas Saxena shares with K Rajani Kanth the reasons behind shifting its headquarters to India, the company's user base targets, opening up its API (application programming interface) to third-party developers, and growth trajectory. Edited excerpts:

What is the primary reason for shifting your headquarters from the Netherlands to India? Is this a strategy to make India a test-bed for your beta products?

Since the very inception of the company, India has been a significant part of Nimbuzz. The India office was started almost four years ago. When we wanted to consolidate our R&D in one location, India was a very natural choice because it gives you a lot of space for experimentation. So, it is best to have your R&D where your future users are going to be. Yes, India is a test-bed for our global rollouts.

What are your user base targets by 2015, both globally and for India, and the factors that are expected to trigger this growth?

Today, Nimbuzz is one of the most-used mobile messaging platforms with over 105 million users globally. We are extremely big in India and West Asia. While we have more than 20 million users in India with a penetration of almost one in five of the mobile Internet users using Nimbuzz, in West Asia we are even higher with a penetration of 30-35% of the available market there. The Asian market, at present, accounts for 50% of our total user base.

The mobile Internet market worldwide is growing. There is a once-in-a-lifetime shift in the user behaviour, what with the mobile handset prices and data charges becoming cheaper and cheaper. At the rate at which we are growing now, I see anywhere between 300 million and 400 million users for Nimbuzz by 2015.


Nimbuzz recently opened up its API for third-party developers to offer apps called bots. How big is that community now and how many apps or bots (software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet) do you have currently?

The absolute number of third-party developers for Nimbuzz is 100. India is the single-largest contributor when it comes to Nimbuzz apps. Of the total external developers, 30% are from India. Currently, we have 70 third-party apps and a lot more are in the offing, which is difficult to predict at this juncture.

Are you planning to have revenue-sharing agreements with these third-party developers? If it is so, by when?
Right now, these are for free .... to engage the user more on the platform. Also, our platform-specific virtual currency Nimbucks are available to buy from mobile operators only. We plan to expand Nimbucks to third-party developers also. Once that is done, we will have a revenue-sharing model with them within a year.

That Nimbuzz is present more on Symbian devices ....

When I say Nimbuzz is one in four or one in five mobile Internet users in India, it is going to be a close representation of how India market is. We are not a niche application. We look at a broad-based market. At present, while Symbian’s share is 39% and Java 25%, Android (17) is the fastest mobile platform for Nimbuzz, followed by Blackberry (9%), iPhone (6%) and others (4%). Symbian will not grow anymore.