It lies in the nature of strong and innovative companies to build synergies and leverage each other’s talent and knowledge. Viber becomes part of Rakuten’s ecosystem Today, users can not only video chat, make voice calls and exchange messages, but also make payments and participate in multi-million-member Communities that provide useful and entertaining content. For the early adopters of 2010 - who had until then been stuck using a mixture of regular phone service, SMS, poorly optimized social media websites and email to communicate with one another - the convenience of Viber was impossible to ignore. “The rest, as they say, is history,” Agaoua jokes. Viber added a messaging function shortly after its launch, hence it quickly became a core part of the app’s DNA. The timeline of Viber Pioneering Communication “With its launch, Viber disrupted the telecommunication scene as it leveraged the most advanced VoIP technologies to deliver a service that was both free but also high quality, even at lower speeds which other apps struggled with,” says Viber CEO Djamel Agaoua. Just a smartphone was needed.Ĭlever UX design and features like phone number registration made finding contacts a breeze, and suddenly, the concept of making international calls from your mobile device had changed forever. Thus, the Viber app enabled anyone to make long-distance phone calls – anywhere and anytime for free. With the Viber app, users could make VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls to other smartphones - a notable technical feat for 2010 that solved a common problem faced by globe-trotting smartphone users (lovebirds or otherwise). That’s how the idea was born! Viber disrupted the telecommunication scene It was even harder and more expansive, when someone was in a long-distance relationship, like one of the founders of Viber. The service was not yet reliable due to slow speeds of mobile networks and the technical limitations of early smartphones. Over 10 years ago, connecting with friends abroad was a true challenge: expensive bills for overseas calls and unstable connectivity on video calls. 1 trillion call minutes in a decade of Viber’s existence.

Rakuten viber ceo