The campaign drove over 160,000 Viber users to join IFRC’s Community where they continue to engage with regular, accurate updates about COVID-19, as well as learn about the vital humanitarian assistance delivered by Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers worldwide.įor today’s official launch, IFRC worked with Viber to develop a brand new pack of vibrant and inclusive stickers designed to promote kindness and solidarity among the platform’s users and encourage them to volunteer with the National Society in their country. IFRC first collaborated with Rakuten Viber on a campaign for World Blood Donor Day in June, with a pack of bespoke stickers encouraging people to give blood shared over 800,000 times on the platform. Viber Out was recently launched to enable users to call mobiles and landlines.Ĭlick here to download Viber for iOS-it’s free.Geneva, 10 September 2020 – The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Croatian Red Cross today signed a new partnership agreement with global messaging app Rakuten Viber to engage new online audiences with trusted COVID-19 information and share humanitarian stories of hope. The app allowed incredibly clear and free VoIP calling over 3G and Wi-Fi networks with video too, rivalling Skype. We first wrote about Viber during its launch in late 2010, when it debuted in the App Store. “Live interactivity is going to be critical for all Internet services.” “In the future, e-commerce will become a more communication-based transaction,” Mikitani said. You may recall Rakuten, owned by Japanese billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani, acquired Canada’s e-book firm Kobo for $315 million in 2011 other investments include a major stake in online scrapbook site Pinterest.Īt a briefing in Tokyo, Mikitani said Viber would provide a distribution channel for their digital products and hopes to build a gaming platform with the messaging service: The Japanese company generates its revenue primarily from its large online shopping mall, online travel service and Internet bank. The move is seen to provide Rakuten with a global presence since Viber is available in 193 countries with over 300 million users across various mobile platforms including your desktop. It gives Rakuten the technology to make Internet calls on a range of devices such as smartphones.
The Cyprus-based Viber is a voice application, which is a new arena for Rakuten. Japan’s Rakuten paid $900 million for Viber, the messaging company. Viber users, looks like your messaging app now has a new overlord as the Cyprus-based company has been acquired by Japan’s Rakuten for $900 million, reports Re/code:
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