“We focus most of our attention on youth because the market itself in India is very, very large,” he said. “The question that we’re asking ourselves is that in 3-4 years from now where the market will be and what are the opportunities? he said. Mittal said Hike is now looking at the billion plus people of India beyond the 200 million Internet users. “Hike has always been targeting the mass market,” he said as such the company has developed tools to simplify the first-time users of mobile on Internet. As such Hike has now launched for the next billion users “Total”, which he described as “our version” of android. “We have simplified the 15-20 steps experience for someone coming online into three or four steps. We just took all the incredible stuff that we put into Hike, messaging all the content, all the transactional services, recharge, UPI, all unbundled into the phone.
We have put deeply at the OS pretty embedded, so when someone buys a device that has Total on it, you have all these services ready to go with the single sign on with phone number and all of that works without data, he said. “So, the first-time experience for someone buying a smartphone becomes very, very seamless and easy. All the basic services like news, astrology, cricket scores, recharge, messaging, all of that stuff one can work without data.