Bobble partners with Indus OS for customizable stickers in regional languages

Bobble and Indus OS announced a partnership. Indus OS has integrated Bobble’s SDK and will become its exclusive distribution partner for India. This will allow Indus OS users to communicate using regional stickers for the very first time.

It is well researched that 90% of the Indian population does not consider English as their 1st, 2nd or 3rd language. Going forward, the next 300 million Indian smartphone users in the next 3 years will all be regional language users. Indus OS claims of having over 5 million users and this partnership may introduce the world of stickers to regional users in their native languages. With just 1 selfie on an Indus OS powered device, users can get free unlimited personalized stickers with their faces, in any of the 12 languages.

The Bobble keyboard technology in combination with the Indus OS keyboard enables users to send Bobble content even while chatting on WhatsApp, Facebook etc. Bobble’s technology will adjust the expression on every face to match the emotion of the sticker or GIF in real time. In addition, personalized content will be recommended to users based on the tone and tenor of the input text, through a self-learning algorithm.

Also, Bobble and Indus OS will add in-content branding on their platform to enhance the user experience and monetize impressions during interpersonal messaging, the most intimate communication medium on mobile. This is a first of its kind partnership, expected to be a significant monetization opportunity.

Bobble's functionalities will roll out across all Indus OS devices within 2016. Currently, Indus OS is available on 50+ devices across India including on Micromax, Celkon, Swipe, Intex and Karbonn. It is available in 12 Indian languages including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil and Urdu. Given the fast pace of Indus OS’s adoption across OEMs in India, Bobble expects to reach a large number of regional users in India.

After being an app from India to be featured in the iMessage Store in dozens of European and Asian countries, and striking a partnership with Baidu, Bobble’s exclusive partnership with Indus OS for distribution in India might help it increase its footprint in home territory.

Speaking on the integration, Mohd. Wassem, Co - founder and MD of Bobble, said, “We have huge respect for Indus OS's success. We are in total agreement with their focus on regional languages to harness the growth in smartphone usage, especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India. Indus OS is a natural partner for us, as the input text for Bobble stickers and GIFs can be in any Unicode character. No other product in the world offers this technology. We are confident of adding value to the user experience of Indus OS devices, and very sensitive about striking a balance between user engagement and in-content branding. We are in the early stages of a more visually expressive culture. All major social and messaging platforms now support rich communication like images, rich links, stickers and GIFs. Within the next month, we will roll out more features for our target audience of 13-29 years. Our near-term product roadmap includes personalized emojis with the users’ faces. Our aspiration is to build a world class consumer-focused internet product from India, and challenge the existing paradigm for mobile conversations. We are proud of our cordial relationship with Indus OS, and look forward to working with them.”

Speaking on the integration, Rakesh Deshmukh, Co-founder and CEO of Indus OS, said, “Indus OS is built on three pillars – Simplification, Innovation and Content. Content being a key piece in the mix, we are consistently exploring partnerships with app developers across utilities and segments to enable regional language speakers to access best-in-class technology freely. We have had successful partnerships so far and helped many apps solve the discovery problem as well as empowered users to access a robust offering. We always aim to cater to the Indian user’s needs. This partnership with Bobble, with its innovative technology that enables instantaneous personalization of content offering regional language stickers will surely be a huge hit in the Indian market”.