騰訊 富士康投資印度即時通信應用

Hike Messenger, an Indian rival to Facebook’s WhatsApp, has achieved “unicorn” status after Tencent and Foxconn joined a fresh funding round that valued the business at $1.4bn.

騰訊(Tencent)和富士康(Foxconn)參與了Hike Messenger的新一輪融資，這輪融資對該公司的估值達到14億美元。這家與Facebook旗下WhatsApp競爭的印度公司，也因此獲得了“獨角獸”身份。

The $175m in financing has made the company one of India’s most valuable technology start-ups just three years after launch. International investors have backed the business to follow in the footsteps of WeChat in China and Line in Japan in building viable messaging businesses in a large local market.

這輪1.75億美元的融資，令該公司在創立僅三年後就成爲印度估值最高的科技創業型企業。國際投資者對該公司投資，爲的是支持它追隨中國微信(WeChat)及日本Line的腳步，在龐大的印度國內市場打造能夠持久發展的即時通信業務。

India’s start-up scene has attracted international investors such as SoftBank, the Japanese technology group, and Tiger Global, the New York-based fund manager, both of which backed Hike Messenger in previous funding rounds and participated in the latest financing.

印度創業型企業所呈現的景象，已吸引日本科技集團軟銀(SoftBank)和紐約基金管理公司老虎環球基金(Tiger Global)等國際投資者。這兩家公司在Hike Messenger此前的幾輪融資中都曾出資，同時也參與了最新這輪融資。

There have been concerns that the Indian market is in danger of overheating as the influx of funding risked overvaluing companies, but the success by Hike Messenger shows that there is still appetite among new investors.

有人擔心，在資金流入可能導致企業價值被高估之際，印度市場存在過熱的危險。然而，Hike Messenger的成功表明，新的投資者對印度市場仍有投資興趣。

Other Indian “unicorns” — unlisted companies with a value of more than $1bn — include Flipkart, a rival to Amazon in India, and Ola, a local competitor to Uber.

印度的其他“獨角獸”企業（即估值超過10億美元的未上市企業）包括Flipkart和Ola。前者是亞馬遜(Amazon)在印度的競爭對手，後者則是優步(Uber)在印度本土的競爭對手。

Tencent is the owner of WeChat, which has built up a base of half a billion users in China and will now look to work with the Indian business to help grow its customer base.

騰訊是微信的所有者，微信在中國已建立了5億多人的用戶羣。如今，微信將尋求與Hike Messenger合作，以便擴大其用戶基礎。

Martin Lau, Tencent president, said that “Hike deeply understands India . . . a highly diverse market with many nuances”.

騰訊總裁劉熾平(Martin Lau)表示，“Hike很懂印度……印度是個高度多元化的市場，有許多需注意的細微之處”。

Hike was founded by Kavin Bharti Mittal, son of billionaire telecoms entrepreneur Sunil Mittal, who founded India’s largest telecoms company Bharti Airtel.

Hike Messenger的創立者是億萬富翁蘇尼爾•米塔爾(Sunil Mittal)之子——凱文•巴蒂•米塔爾(Kavin Bharti Mittal)。蘇尼爾•米塔爾創立了印度最大的電信企業巴蒂電信(Bharti Airtel)。

Mr Mittal said: “Tencent and Foxconn both have pedigrees that speak for themselves and such an investment especially in today’s market just goes to show the strong foundation on which Hike is built.”

凱文•巴蒂•米塔爾表示：“騰訊和富士康是多麼重量級的投資者是顯而易見的，這樣的投資——尤其是在今天的市場——絕對有助於顯示Hike的堅實基礎。”

Bharti was an original investor in the messaging app. The start-up has raised $250m of investment in total as it built a customer base of 100m users who send 40bn messages a month.

巴蒂是這個即時通信應用最早的投資者。這家創業型企業在打造1億用戶羣（這些用戶每月發送400億條消息）的過程中，總計已融得2.5億美元投資。

However, Hike still trails far behind WhatsApp, which has 1bn users globally and counts India as one of its largest markets. Hike has tried to take the fight to its Facebook-owned rival with local content, including news in both English and Hindi and live cricket scores, as well as a privacy mode.

不過，Hike Messenger仍遠遠落後於WhatsApp，後者在全球擁有10億用戶，印度是其最大市場之一。Hike Messenger已試圖用印度本土內容和隱私模式與WhatsApp對抗。這些本土內容包括英語和印地語雙語新聞以及實時板球比分。

The service also uses a Bluetooth-type data transfer system that allows friends to share content between phones without incurring data charges over telecoms networks. It is estimated that about a third of smartphone users in India do not have a data connection.

Hike Messenger的服務還使用了一種藍牙類型的數據傳輸系統，讓用戶不使用電信網絡的收費數據流量就能與朋友分享手機上的內容。據估計，在印度大約有三分之一的智能手機用戶沒有移動數據連接。

The arrival of Tencent and Foxconn as investors in Hike is the latest sign that the largest Asi technology companies are still willing to bet on developing new services. Both have been active in making larger investments elsewhere in recent months.

騰訊和富士康成爲Hike Messenger的投資者是表明亞洲大型科技企業仍希望押注於開發新服務的最新跡象。近幾個月來，這兩家公司都在積極地在其他地區開展更大規模的投資。

Tencent purchased Supercell, the Finnish maker of Clash of Clans, last month for $10.2bn after buying out SoftBank’s majority stake in June, and the Japanese company in turn agreed to buy ARM Holdings for ￡24.3bn. Foxconn, which assembles the iPhone, completed its $3.5bn takeover of Sharp, the Japanese technology group, this week and also paid $350m to buy Nokia’s feature phone business from Microsoft in May.

6月份，騰訊買下了軟銀持有的Supercell的多數股權，這筆交易對這家制作《部落衝突》(Clash of Clans)的芬蘭公司的估值爲102億美元。7月份，軟銀達成以243億英鎊的價格收購ARM控股(ARM Holdings)的協議。組裝iPhone的富士康則在近日完成了對日本科技集團夏普(Sharp)的35億美元的收購。富士康還在5月份斥資3.5億美元，從微軟(Microsoft)手中買下了諾基亞(Nokia)的功能手機業務。