Nimbuzz to be pre-installed on handset for O2 Germany

Mike Butcher

Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Dutch mobile startup Nimbuzz is to be preinstalled by O2 Germany, initially on the Toshiba TG01 handset. The application can be set to be “always on”. It’s significant that a Tier 1 global operator has chosen to do this, though terms of the deal were not disclosed. We’ll check if Nimbuzz is paying O2 to go on the handset or if O2 is paying Nimbuzz for the app.

StudiVZ, Germany’s most popular social network, is pre-integrated into the app. Nimbuzz is the application that allows mobile chat with the largest German speaking social network StudiVZ (15 million users).

Nimbuzz claims 900,000+ sign-ups per month and now operates in 200 countries. It recently partnered with Voxbone to allow users make voice calls without 3G or Wi-Fi connectivity to their contacts over IM and VOIP services, including Skype, by sensing when the handset is out of Wi-Fi or 3G range.

iPhone will still have to wait for the 3.0 release of the app.

Here’s a video of how it works on the handset.

  • Ram

    I like the Blue color on the personal profile but too may colours in the interface (orange, green…etc) which might confuse users. please contact a UX guy!

  • valter

    I love Nimbuzz whatever collor they decide to use. I believe Nimbuzz is the best choice. It is small, fast and easy to use.

  • http://technorotic.com Technorotic

    Nimbuzz is the best choice, But Im surprised to read that Nimbuzz claims 900,000+ sign-ups per month and now operates in 200 countries. if this true then I think soon we’ll have Nimbuzz rather than skype :D
    I think other VoIPs like Vopium, Jajah and truphone also look into it and also try this idea :)

  • http://saday-e-pakistan.blogspot.com Mania

    I agree with Technorotic, After Skype, Jajah, Truphone and Vopium are in competition with Nimbuzz.

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