India's Hike Messenger is now officially shut down

Indian freeware, cross-platform instant messaging service, Hike Messenger that included a wide variety of fun Indian stickers, chat backgrounds, and much more has now been officially shut down.

As per the Mashable, the shutdown of its operations was recently announced by the company's CEO, Kavin Bharti Mittal. The app has also been removed from Google Playstore and Apple's App Store.

Confirming the news Mittal tweeted "Today we're announcing that we will be sunsetting StickerChat in Jan'21. We thank you all for giving us your trust."

He continued, "We wouldn't be here without you Red heart. All your data will be available to download in the app. Your HikeMoji will continue to be available in both Vibe & Rush!"

Mittal has not yet stated as to what lead to the decision to shut down Hike Messenger. However, he had tweeted last week as to why India can't have its own messenger stating that "Global network effects are too strong (unless India bans Western compes)".

Hike Messenger was an Indian rival to other instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and Facebook Messenger. As per Mashable, Signal and Telegram have been gaining massive traction in India following the latest WhatsApp privacy policy row.

( With inputs from ANI )