Korean-based IT company HyperConnect’s video-chatting app Azar has made it to Europe’s 4th top revenue earning app after Tinder, Netflix, and YouTube! With over 300 million downloads worldwide, 70 billion matches, and available in over 130 countries, Azar has established itself as one of the biggest players in the dating-chatting app market.
Azar’s slogan, ‘Discover and Connect,’ highlights the company’s vision for the app – an easy way to discover new people from all over the world. Azar has been one of the top-grossing apps for the last several years. Last year, the company sales stood at $91 million, mostly from in-app purchases, while its net profit jumped 134% to 17 billion won or about $14 million.
Making matches across the world
Video call using the Azar app connects the user to the other party regardless of communication speed or technical specifications. Azar is kind of a video ‘Tinder’ matching users with video-chats. It allows users to easily build meaningful relationships, make new friends, and communicate with others using machine learning-powered technologies.
This aspect of the app’s service is giving enough revenue to HyperConnect through in-app purchases to allow users to select matches by region and gender. Azar randomly matches users, but if they want to choose a specific country or language, they have to subscribe to a cost. This revenue-earning model put Azar ninth in the global non-gaming segment in the Google Play Store last year.
Since its inception, Azar has been targeted to the local market and global shores. It has gained tremendous popularity in Southeast Asian countries, India, the Middle East, Turkey, and even Saudi Arabia. Ninety percent of HyperConnect’s sales are from foreign shores.
Meeting Investor Expectations
HyperConnect was founded by Sang-il Ahn, who was President of the Startup Club at Seoul University, Kang-sik Jung, CTO of Seoul University Computer Engineering Program, and Hyun-tek Yong CSO from Pohang University Computer Engineering Program. HyperConnect, with its expert engineering team, wanted to bring in a cutting edge WebRTC, a real-time video communication technology. After trial and error, HyperConnect developed Azar, the first in the world WebRTC, that could be used on mobile platforms.
In December 2014, Altos Ventures, headquartered in Silicon Valley, had invested $2 million in a seed round for HyperConnect for their video messenger Azar. Altos Ventures CEO Han Kim had said at the time of funding the startup they had trust in the greater potential of HyperConnect. In 2015, HyperConnect had raised US $8.6 million in Series B funding led by SoftBank Ventures and Alto Ventures.
The startup has definitely exceeded the expectations of its investors with grand success and revenue generation. HyperConnect has recorded a 71.4% year-on-year increase in sales and an explosive growth of over 30 times in just four years. The startup is now concentrating on developing more features for Azar and new products for the global market.
