SMSGupshup: A Twitter like service in India for mobile phone users

SMSGupshup is a twitter like service in India, except that it is entirely supported by mobile platforms. “Gupshup’ is a hindi term for “chitchat”. SMSGupshup allows its members to exchange group messages from their mobile phones. The members do not need to go to web to open an account or participate in conversations. Since it’s launch in April 2007, the service has seen a phenomenal growth in terms of subscribers. In October 2008, the service had 12 million users and about 500 thousand communities. Last month, Michael Arrington on TechCrunch reported that the service has been adopted by 20 million users and has generated about $150,000 per month in revenue. Arrington interviewed Beerud Sheth, the founder of SMSGupshup who said that about 400 million text messages per month are exchanged by SMSGupshup users. The revenue earned by the service is through in-text advertising added four months ago.

Anand Rajaraman has a nice comparison of SMSGupshup with Twitter on his blog.

If you have used the service let me know what your experience has been. If you have any statistics related to its user profile, let me know. I will appreciate it.