Viber, the popular instant messaging and IP calling apps has provided an offer to all account registered under Nepali phone number, which enables them to make free Viber out calls to any numbers in 52 countries. The called number could be landline or mobile both inside the country or international (52 countries). The offer has already started from 6th September and will be valid till 19th for the duration 8 pm to 10 pm. Viber has 754 million users all around the world but it is not exactly known how many are there in Nepal alone. As there are around 10 million internet users in mobile and if only 50 percent owns Viber, ( as it is very popular here in Nepal), the number of Viber users in Nepal comes to around 5 million which is very high from a small country like ours. Right now they have brought this special offer, exclusively to Nepal. They have already given some focus to Nepal, which they take us as a key market in south Asia. Viber had also given free national and international calls from Nepal during the earthquake period, which was very useful to all those who had access to the internet, to call their families abroad and inside the country as cellular network was not available in some area that time.
“Starting 6th September 2016, Nepalese users can use free Viber out feature, designed to call mobile and landline numbers around the world from any iOS, Android and Windows smartphone or Windows PC or Mac,” read a statement released by Viber on Wednesday.
“Viber has a very strong presence in Nepal. Since a large part of Nepal’s population stay outside for work or education, the Free Viber Out offer will give people an opportunity to connect freely without worrying about call charges ,” said Anubhav Nayyar , Regional Head , South Asia for Viber.
The offer is limited to 10 minutes call duration during 8 pm to 10 pm for that period(Sept 6th to 19th) and require nice internet connection for good calls. That means all calls will be disconnected after 10 minutes and needs to re connect for another call. Here is the list of 52 countries that you can make free calls from Nepal to landlines and mobile there.
Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Canada, China, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Vietnam.
Viber has also been providing some Nepali language and style stickers that is quite popular here. Due to the maximum usage of Viber here in the country, it is known that they will be bringing some innovative services to the users here in Nepal.
This offer comes when two operators NT and Ncell are waging price war over their services, be it voice pack or data pack. Such offers from the very popular application are useful for Nepalese to make calls to their friends and family abroad but it is very detrimental to the revenues of the telecom operators, ultimately a loss to the country.
