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An Indonesian Telco Develops Chat App to Battle Against WhatsApp, Line, and the Rest

messaging indonesia
messaging indonesia

A few months ago we reported that the Indonesian telcos were planning to build a chat app platform together to battle the aggresively expanding foreign chat apps like WeChat, Line, and KakaoTalk. We questioned how the various telcos could actually work together to build it without it being a management nightmare. Well, a couple of days ago Indonesian telco Indosat revealed (via Detik) that the company is readying itself - alone - to launch its WhatsApp-inspired service in the third quarter of this year at the earliest. The app will convert the chats from a smartphone device into SMS when being sent to a feature phone. In that way, the company will get to keep some revenue from the SMS industry. The telco is going to build the application with a local third-party developer. The company is still in the process of choosing the developers now. The Indosat representative said that they are doing this to help the local developers too. If the plan comes to fruition, then Indosat would definitely prioritize its own app, including possibly giving more affordable pricing for its own messaging app. It still remains to be seen if the telco will be able to develop something better than WhatsApp, Line, and KakaoTalk in such a short time. Chinese telco China Mobile built its own messaging platform a few years ago called Fetion; after initial success, it soon started to it lose out to rivals like WeChat in the chat app battleground. (Source: Detik)
The post An Indonesian Telco Develops Chat App to Battle Against WhatsApp, Line, and the Rest appeared first on Tech in Asia.