Social media is a big deal all around the world. The ability to share photos, have video chats and VoIP apps are things that everyone wants. Not wanting to be left behind, China’s largest mobile operator China Mobile (News - Alert) is developing an in-house mobile VoIP and messaging app. Its name is Jego.

A subsidiary, China Mobile International, which has a global focus, confirmed today in Beijing that Jego will launch in June. Its target market is the international user. The main goal of the app is to help friends and family stay in touch with those in China.

There are currently several companies out there designed to do just that. Companies such as Whatsapp, WeChat, Line, Tango and Skype (News - Alert) already have apps that allow a user to share photos and have video chats.

China Mobile International business development manager, Derick Li, explains that Jego is not meant to take out WeChat or any other messaging app. Li says it is first and foremost a competitor to Skype. If you look closely though, it does seem that Jego is a direct competitor to video calling services. This would include WeChat and Tango as well as many others.

A lot of telecommunication companies all over the world have been working on their own Over-The-Top (OTT) messaging and VoIP apps. The OTT apps are designed to keep hold of their customers’ loyalty and extending their reach globally. Of course if increasing their bottom line is a benefit, then so be it.

Jego is being developed and will be owned by the subsidiary, China Mobile International. China Mobile already has an old OTT app called Fetion. They are taking it out of mothballs to challenge WeChat and WhatsApp with free messaging. Fetion comes as a bundled package with China Mobile customers.

Li claims that Jego’s initial target demographic is mostly going to be overseas Chinese businessmen, students studying abroad and anyone who wants to stay in touch with China. The app offers a cheap way to make calls to China and Hong Kong as well as other countries, without concerns about roaming fees. China Mobile hopes to extend this demographic to the non-Chinese user.

One major point of comparison between Jego and Skype is call quality. When it comes to call quality, China Mobile plans to have 27 point of presence (PoP) sites around the world. They will route Jego calls end-to-end. The importance of this is that the closer to home a PoP is from where you are calling from, the better your call quality will be.

Another area where Li believes that Jego stands out from its competitors is its two value added services. First, users can claim a China Mobile number through Jego without the need for a SIM card. Second, existing China Mobile numbers can be tied to Jego if you’d like to make or receive Jego calls with that same number.

With companies like WhatsApp, Skype and now Jego the need for SMS is diminishing. Jego offers VoIP calling to landlines and mobile phones (as long as you’re not signing up with a Chinese number) to the US, UK, Malaysia, South Korea, and other countries.

As of right now, there is no specific launch date for Jego. The only information that we can pass on is that it will be available sometime next month and it will work on Android (News - Alert) and iOS devices.