Iranian Messaging App Mediocre

EghtesadOnline: Soroush, the locally-made call and messaging application owned by the state-run broadcasting company, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), released earlier this summer, does not seem to be doing very well.

News ID: ۷۷۲۷۴۸

30 December 2016

The application, which aimed to replace popular foreign messaging services such as Whatsapp and Telegram, has only been downloaded 50,000 times on Google Play and 200,000 times on the local Android app store known as Café Bazaar, khabaronline.ir reported.

However, not every person who downloads the app is an active user.

The app developers who are mostly Sharif University students, have listed free calls, group calls, fast and secure data transmission, file transference, and diverse chat stickers as some features of the application, according to Financial Tribune.

Judging by user comments, it seems that the application has more bugs than the developers would like to admit. Users have listed problems with iOS 10 as well as poor build quality as the major problems while others have said that voice call feature does not work at all.

Recent data shows that the top messaging app in Iran, Telegram Messenger, now has 170,000 Persian channels, 11,000 of which have more than 5,000 members. An estimated 45 million Iranians actively use Telegram and this means that Iranian app developers have a long way to go before they can find their desired place among Iranian users.