Bulgarian users have been particularly active in the popular Viber communication application in the past 2021. The number of messages sent in Bulgaria amounts to 13 billion or 400 per second, while the voice calls reached 530 million with a total duration of an impressive 50 million hours.
The number of sent messages and calls increased by 11% on an annual basis last year. In addition, Bulgarian consumers have exchanged 700 million stickers with each other, and the image created through filters reaches 2 million.
Thanks to all this, Viber maintains its position as the number one communication application on the Bulgarian market for another year. This became clear during an online presentation of Viber, which presented the results achieved in 2021 and the future goals of the company, which is part of the Japanese giant Rakuten.
“These results are impressive and we are very grateful. But among other things, they are a great responsibility that we bear, “said Atanas Raykov, Senior Director for Europe, Middle East and North Africa (EMENA) at Rakuten Viber.
According to him, a key achievement last year for Viber on the Bulgarian market is the achieved strategic partnership with EasyPay, which allows users to save time through the service of paying monthly bills and other obligations directly through the platform.
The company’s chatbot service, which provides information on everything related to COVID-19, operating in partnership with the Bulgarian government, is also reported as a major success last year. Viber plans to continue its partnership with the authorities on the issue, as this issue is important for society and the state, said Raykov.
Companies around the world and in our country are increasingly taking advantage of digital solutions, as Viber data show significant growth in business services.
“Because of the pandemic, brands and consumers have begun to turn to digital channels,” said Noah Bar-Shai, senior director of partnerships at Rakuten Viber.
This leads to an evolution in communication between consumers and business. According to the data presented, 58% of consumers say that written messages are the fastest way to reach a brand, and as many as 74% would communicate with a specific business if they have the opportunity to do so through messages instead of voice conversations.
As a result, 77% of businesses that have started communicating with their customers through messaging plan to continue this practice after the end of the pandemic, Noah Bar-Shai said.
Viber and business in Bulgaria
More than 8,500 companies around the world use Viber’s business messaging service, and Bulgarian business is no exception.
In the last 2021 the created new accounts for business messages in our country increased by 46%. The number of chatbots jumped by 26%, and user engagement grew by 30%. This leads to a total of 71% increase in business messages delivered to Bulgarian consumers.
The most noticeable increase was observed in real calls (support from consultants), which recorded an increase of as much as 237% last year. Transaction messages (order confirmations, delivery tracking, meeting reminders) grew by 52%, while promotional messages (offers, discounts) increased by 91%.
The financial sector in Bulgaria most often takes advantage of Viber’s business messaging service, forming a share of nearly 40% of all companies that rely on the digital communication channel. Retailers are the second most active industry with a share of 27%, and logistics companies account for 19%.
Advertisers also actively relied on Viber last year, according to data from Konstantin Kostadinov, Rakuten Viber’s senior sales director for CEE and the CIS.
The volume of advertising messages seen by Bulgarian users on Viber increased by as much as 77% last year, compared to 70% growth worldwide.
Among the most effective verticals are: health and fitness, which have a growth of 90%, energy by 56% and transport by 51%. The app also marked a leap in new advertising categories such as recruitment and local businesses, reflecting the pandemic’s impact on business and the labor market.
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In terms of the company’s future goals, Viber seeks to become an application that combines multiple services into one – something like a “super application”, thus aiming to improve the daily lives of users, it became clear from the words of Christina Constandace, chief sales director at Rakuten Viber.
However, all this will not happen at the expense of security and confidentiality of user data, as this is the main feature of Viber, the company said.
“The development of Covid-19 continues to change our daily lives and society’s attitudes towards the new reality in 2022. I am glad that people and companies recognize Viber as a unifier for their personal and business life in these troubled times “, said Atanas Raykov.
“For a long time, part of Viber’s strategy has been to become a super-application – providing as many value-added services as possible to our customers and more opportunities for brands to interact with their customers in a more natural environment. The data mentioned above once again proves that we are developing our application in the right direction, as both users and companies are increasingly using Viber in their daily communication, “he added.
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