If price makes all of the difference, Viber, a mobile calling and chat app, stands to pull in many customers. It recently launched Viber Out, which lets users make calls worldwide to non-Viber users – including mobile phones and landlines – at rates that are now much lower than Skype (News - Alert).
The new rates could lead to some serious price competition among different market players.
Skype is more popular now with some 300 million users. Viber, on the other hand, has 200 million users. But that number could soon jump with these prices.
Take India, for instance, a market that Viber considers important, as it makes its top-ten list, according to Talmon Marco, CEO of Viber.
“While a Skype call from the U.S. to India via landline costs 36.5 cents…for three minutes, a Viber call between the U.S. and India costs 7.5 cents, making Viber 387 percent cheaper. Similarly, a U.S.-India call on mobile costs 14.7 cents on Viber and 36.5 cents on Skype, making Viber calls 148 percent cheaper,” Marco told DNA News.
Viber supports such operating systems as Android, iOS, Windows, BlackBerry, Bada, Mac, Linux, Symbian and Nokia (News - Alert) S40. The release of Viber 4.1 for Android and iPhone includes the launch of Viber Out. Desktop is an option for Viber Out, too. It will come to Windows Phone (News - Alert) soon.
“Viber Out gives our millions of users a new way to use Viber and ensures that they can reach any contact at any time,” Marco added in a company statement. “We will continue to improve Viber Out, keeping our users connected at the most affordable rates possible.”
There is an added advantage with Viber. Callers do not need to use an Internet connection. Skype requires one.
Image via Shutterstock
Viber has seen improved voice quality and connectivity recently, too, and VoIP service is likely to follow.
However, Viber Out costs more than HelloIP, a new service from Nimbuzz (News - Alert) and Spectranet, according to a report from MediaNama.
There is another wrinkle with the Viber service. Recent news reports speculate whether its current and future offerings are legal.
Under telecom laws in India, calls originating in the county can’t be “terminated on mobiles or landlines anywhere in the world without a license,” MediaNama reports. Thus, Nimbuzz partnered with Spectranet for its new service.
On the other hand, service that goes from one PC to another or IP-to-IP calls are legal in India.
If Viber launches “a full-fledged VoIP service” it will need “a unified license or at least tie-up with someone who has,” MediaNama claims.
Marco said in a recent statement that Viber is not a company based in India – a possible workaround to the requirement.
“Though we would like to see VoIP services such as Skype and Viber become popular in India, the legality of it all brings up a lot of questions,” MediaNama said. “There will be several players within the country wondering why they can’t launch such a service without a license if a foreign company can do so here.”
In a comment on the new service and legal questions, one reader of MediaNama, IndiaNama, responded that "Indian laws make no sense. What's the goal of this law and the license? Is it just to appease the License Raj?”
The new Viber deal comes soon after Tata Docomo partnered with Whatsapp to offer more competitive rates.
Edited by Alisen Downey