 "Bigo Live Broadcasting (Image courtesy Tech in Asia)")
Do you know what the top free app in the Singapore App Store is right now? Go on, guess. WhatsApp? Uber? Facebook Messenger? Probably Pokemon Go? All solid guesses — and that last one is already wreaking havoc in the charts.
But according to SimilarWeb, up until a few days ago, before the pocket monster rampage landed, the number one spot was claimed by Bigo Live — a live-streaming video app made by a Singaporean team.
Bigo Live Broadcasting launched in March 2016 and is available on iOS and Android. At first glance, it’s not much different from live-streaming apps like Periscope and Meerkat.
Yet Bigo just seems to resonate a lot more with young people in Southeast Asia.
Both versions of the app are consistently in the top 20 apps used in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos — a little less so in Malaysia, but still cracking SimilarWeb’s top 50 for those countries.
Bigo is a Singapore-based team, describing itself as a “fast-growing internet company” working on “video broadcast and VoIP-related products and services all over the world”. It claims to own over 40 patents in VoIP and video technology.
The start-up is connected to Chinese powerhouse YY, a social network that also relies heavily on video. YY is reported to have over 300 million users and is currently beating its compatriot Weibo in revenue and growth.
According to an official press release, YY entered an agreement with Bigo in 2014 to give the Singaporean start-up “its free voice-over IP service, called Weihui”. YY also claims to own a 27.8 per cent stake in Bigo.
This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here
