Instant messaging platform Nimbuzz expects the Indian market to be one of the main drivers in touching the 400-million userbase mark in the next two years.

The company had recently announced crossing the 100 million user mark across 80 countries, entering the league of top 20 most-used internet platforms in mobile and web communications space.

“With a 100 million strong userbase, the target now is to double userbase each year in the next two years to reach 400 million by 2014-end,” Nimbuzz CEO Vikas Saxena said.

He added that about 25 per cent of the targeted number is expected to come from India.

Of the 100 million users, the company claims that India has 17 million users; followed by the U.S at 6.5 million users, West Asia (30 million); South Asia (14 million); Africa (13 million) and Europe (10 million).

“India has been a strong market for us and we have seen strong adoption across platforms, especially Android. While in earlier days, the numbers were coming from the application being pre-bundled, the additions are now coming from people downloading the application on their smartphones,” Vikas Saxena said.

He added that the company is working on a slew of new products to engage users and drive the userbase.

Vikas Saxena said that the additions were pan-India but increasing traction is being seen in regions like Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

Nimbuzz counts What’s App, Blackberry messenger, Skype, WeChat and Yahoo messenger as rival platforms across the world.

It has received $25 million in venture capital and strategic funding from the Mangrove Capital Partners (investors in Skype) and Naspers/MIH (investors in Tencent and Mail.ru).

Founded in 2006 in the Netherlands, Nimbuzz moved its global headquarters to Gurgaon earlier this year.

The company has a delivery and development centre in Gurgaon. While half of its 160 employees are based in India, the remaining 80 are spread across the Argentina and the Netherlands.

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