Hike teams up with Airtel to integrate 'Total' on mobile phones

Hike, India's homegrown messaging app has teamed up with Bharti Airtel to bring 'Total, built by Hike' on mobile devices under the "Mera Peha Smartphone'' initiative by Airtel.

A recently-announced offering by Hike, 'Total' allows users to access essential services such as messaging, news, recharge and others without a data connection. Users will be able to purchase Sachet Data Packs starting as low as Rs 1 from inside the Total experience itself with the goal of lowering the cost of access and introducing people to data.

Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder, and CEO, Hike, said “ With ‘Total’ on ‘Mera Pehla Smartphones’, first-time users will find it easy to understand and navigate a smartphone. Using data is also simplified and ‘Total’ users can get online with special data packs starting as low as Rs 1. This is really powerful. We are very clear that to get a billion people online, we need to make the whole process of coming online a lot simpler, less intimidating as well as cost-effective and this partnership with Airtel is likely to do that.”

‘Total' has 4 key elements that combine together to make the end to end experience extremely seamless and simple:

1. Single Login: A Single Login via the Phone Number for all of Total services such as Messaging, News, Horoscope, Recharge, Wallet, Cricket Scores and Rail information.

2. Light Services < 100 kb to 1 MB: Services on ‘Total, built by hike’ take between < 100 kb to 1 MB ensuring a lightweight footprint on the device.

3. Works without Data: All of the services built on Total can be accessed even without Data via proprietary technology.

4. Sachet Data Packs: Users will be able to purchase Sachet Data Packs starting as low as Re. 1 from inside the Total experience itself with the goal of lowering the cost of access and introducing people to data.

Nikhil Gilani, Head, Devices, and E-commerce, Bharti Airtel said, “Airtel’s ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ has been a pathbreaking initiative towards removing barriers to smartphone adoption in India and has received a very positive response from customers. We share Hike’s vision of helping every Indian own a smartphone and benefit from the digital super-highway. We look forward to collaborating with all our partners under this initiative to give every Indian access to a smartphone, bring them online and be a part of Digital India.”

Total will be shipping as a pre-installed feature in select devices from March 2018.