UK-based ISP New Call Telecom has acquired a majority 70% stake in the mobile instant messaging and VoIP company Nimbuzz Nimbuzz for about $175 million, reports the Economic Times. While the terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, Nimbuzz will act as a unit of New Call Telecom and will continue to be headed by Nimbuzz CEO Vikas Saxena. New Call Telecom told ET that this acquisition will enable them to integrate Nimbuzz platform along with a number of new apps, with its home broadband and Wi-Fi services in India and eventually other parts of the world. It is also considering integrating Nimbuzz with its International calling business to further lower the rates for its existing customers. Note that Nimbuzz already has a VoIP service called NimbuzzOut that is targeted at International markets. In October last year, it had also launched an international calling service HelloIP with Spectranet. Apart from this, Nimbuzz will also apparently act an incubator for New Call Telecom apps. Nimbuzz currently offers a cross-platform calls and messaging app across Android, Windows, iPhone, Blackberry and on ancient Java based cellphones as well. The app has features like file sharing, VOIP calls, chat rooms, stickers and free messaging among other things. It competes with other messaging apps like WhatsApp, LINE, Hike and WeChat and also VoIP services like Skype. The ET report says that mobile brand advertising currently generates around 60% of Nimbuzz's revenues while International calling accounts for 30% of its revenues. (Also read: Nokia tries Chat Buddy campaign on Nimbuzz). The company shifted base to India, that…
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