UK ISP New Call Telecom Could Fuel Broadband with Nimbuzz Stake

Telecoms provider New Call Telecom, which also owns UK Internet and phone provider Fuel Broadband (formerly Primus Saver), has splashed out around £108 million ($175m) to acquire a 70% stake in India-based Nimbuzz, a free VoIP calls and instant messaging app for use on both desktop computers and mobile devices.

The foundations of Nimbuzz were first developed in the Netherlands, although it ultimately ended up attracting 30 million Indians to its service and thus moved to that country during 2012 in order to build on the rising demand. The number of Nimbuzz users around the world has since increased to over 200 million.

According to the Indian Economic Times, Nimbuzz created revenue of just £18.5m ($30m) this year, which is double what it had three years ago. Lest we not forget that Facebook recently splashed out around £12bn to gobble the similar WhatsApp service. The reason for all this is because revenue from traditional voice calls are in decline and some operators are considering a different approach for the future.

At present it looks like New Call Telecom will focus most of their development of Nimbuzz on the Indian market, although in future they intend to bring those changes to the wider global market and that could present an interesting product direction for their UK businesses (e.g. Fuel Broadband).