We should know by now what Viber is. It’s this generation’s Skype without the charges. Although it seems to be facing competition from other equally aggressive messaging services, Viber is here to stay with an estimated 6.1 million users from the Philippines out of its 200 million-strong global base.
Just when you ask “what will now happen to telcos?” with free voice and text messaging apps available for today’s smartphones,Globe announced a tie-up with Viber to come up with an irresistible bundled offer for its prepaid subscribers. The whole idea: get to use Viber even without wi-fi or additional data charges for as low as P25-P20 per day.
With GoUNLI25, subscribers can connect with contacts in any Globe network as well as with other users subscribed to other networks both in the Philippines and abroad, for as long as these contacts have Viber accounts.
People who want a full Viber experience can also avail of unlimited Viber calls and chat for only P20 a day. To register to any of the Viber mobile browsing promos, just dial *143# for free.
Present during the presscon to announce the Globe-Viber partnership were George Bithos (middle of photo) who is senior advisor for Globe’s Consumer Business and Viber CEO Talmon Marco (right) who flew in from his home base of New York just for the occasion.
According to Mr. Bithos: “We are happy and excited to collaborate with Viber as their exclusive Philippine telco partner to expand their user base and presence in the country. This is all in line with Globe’s strategy to explore new revenue streams beyond call and text services.”
And Mr. Marco said: ” With Viber’s revolutionary features that Filipinos love, it is a refreshing experience to use the application without having to wait for Wi-Fi. With the innovative offers from Globe, every Filipino will now get a chance to explore the Viber experience.”
A common question asked of Viber as a company is: “how do you earn money?”, the service being ads-free. With a hint of mystery, the Viber CEO only said “we are going to earn money.” I guess the tie-up with Globe already gives us an idea how they are going to do it, aside from reportedly selling their famous stickers in an online sticker store. We just hope Viber will remain free, fast and feature-rich for its millions of users for a long time.
Viber is currently available on the iPhone (iOS), Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Windows, Mac and other devices over 3G/4G or Wi-Fi connections.
With Viber for iOS, you can use your iPhone to make free calls and send free text, photo and video messages to other Viber users, on any device, in any network and country!