Last December, we covered how couples App Between has been downloaded more than 5 million times by couples. Well, they’ve since doubled the number of downloads to 10 million downloads worldwide. This incredibly rapid-growing app must be doing something right!
According to the press release by VCNC, the creators of this mobile app, much of the growth came from overseas markets such as Japan, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Japan had 1 million local downloads this year while Southeast Asia doubled it’s number of users. The number of users from outside of South Korea, where their headquarters are based, increased from 40% to 50% this year as well.
Unicorn Goals 2014
Jake Park, CEO and co-founder of VCNC said, “Each year, I challenge the team to achieve a ‘unicorn’ goal. In 2013, it was releasing Between 2.0, making the best app for couples even better. This year, it was hitting 10 million global downloads, up from just 5 million at the end of last year. The milestone is important for our company’s next steps to achieving sustainability as it will allow us to operate as a platform, and I’m proud to see the team hit this goal confidently.”
To date, Between has delivered over 24.9 billion messages, stored over 255 million photos, and recorded over 12.6 billion app sessions. Now that’s a LOT of ‘I love you’s.
Christmas Plans and Unicorn Goals for 2015
General Manager of VCNC in Singapore, Joash Wee told Vulcan Post that they have big plans for the next year. “The ‘Unicorn Goal’ for 2015 would be to make Between into a platform. We are currently getting beta testers for our 3rd-party API, which allows Between to offer more services to our users.”
He also told Vulcan Post that in Singapore, Between will be launching a special gift pack for users to purchase for the women in their lives this Christmas! “Boyfriends and husbands can look out for a specially crafted pack by Between, PSLove and Megafash that says, ‘you are important and I care’ to their ladies.” This is your chance to shine, guys!
“Also, keep an eye out for a fun #Taxifie campaign we’ll be launching in Singapore together with Hailo, where participants stand a chance to win free taxi rides. For Malaysian and Thailand users, we will be doing some special shopping promotions with local partnerships to help couples find the right gifts for each other.”
So if you haven’t downloaded the app yet, now would be a good time!
Couples Apps Bringing More Love To The Air
There is no shortage of couples apps for lovers that are offered free for smartphone users. Between, however, remains the largest and most downloaded app offering this service, with Avocado, Couple and You&Me following suit. All these apps focus on couple interaction with functions that allow couples to stay connected to one another. It is, however, the features that keep the users hooked though! For example, Couple offers a fun feature called “Thumb Kiss”. Both users press their thumbs against the screen at the same time and the phone vibrates and the screen turns red.
While the majority of users for Between are admittedly from South Korea where the VCNC headquarters are based, You&Me ranks among the top 75 social networking apps in the US, followed by Couple and lastly Avocado with Between nowhere to be found.
These apps don’t hold a candle to the large social messaging apps such as WhatsApp, LINE or WeChat though! WhatsApp has an incredible 500 million users in April this year, with users sharing 700 million photos and 100 million videos per day!
Social messaging apps are not as intimate as apps specifically for couples, so the couples app do belong in a separate niche. Like Between, most of couples app endorses a monogamous relationship where only the significant other can send messages, picture or videos by using that app. With these apps, there’s also less chance of accidentally sending “love you, xoxo” to the group chat amongst colleagues. Just saying.
