Bangalore, India-based SliQBits today announced SliQ, a voice and video calling app — targeting emerging telecom markets.
SliQ app enables video calls at 45kbps, and voice calls at 25kbps – promising to work on 2G / 3G telecom networks.
The company claims that big call apps do not work on Android phones that own over 90 percent of smartphone OS market.
SliQBits has development teams in Noida (Delhi NCR) and Bangalore, India, enabling development of call apps that can be used in emerging telecom markets.
SliQBits’ investors include Paul Bulcke, CEO of Nestle, Sanjay Kapoor, ex CEO of Airtel India, Banque Piguet, Bruce Ames – top 10 Biologist, Vijay Amritraj, Indian tennis player, and Ariel Winiger, head Equity Finance SGC, Hong Kong.
“We developed technologies that adapt voice and video to available bandwidths more efficiently than competitors like Skype, FaceTime or Viber. Due to more efficient data management, video and voice calls cost a fraction of other call apps,” said Aloka Mitra, CEO of SliQBits.
Emerging market users can now do video calls for less than 1c a minute, and talk for less than 0.5c a minute.
SliQ is a free voice and video app enabling connections at 25kbps for voice and 45kbps for video. On high-speed connections, the app caps data speeds at 500kbps, to reduce consumers’ data charges.
It generates revenues by banner, audio and video ads at the bottom of the screen and during the call rings. Nestle is already advertising its Nescafe brand with banner and jingle ads.
The app is currently available in three languages such as English, Hindi and Telugu. The app company will expand the number of languages to ten. SliQ’s modular low bit rate engines are also available for licensing to social media apps that need voice and video in emerging markets.
