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Shenzhen XinHui Technology Co., Ltd. (深圳心慧科技有限公司) | |
Company type | Language exchange Instant messaging |
Founded | 2012 [1] |
Founder | Zackery Ngai |
Headquarters | , China |
Number of employees | 50 |
Website | web |
HelloTalk is a language exchange app and website released in 2012. It is monetized using the freemium model. [2] It was created by Chinese developer Zackery Ngai.
As of April 2020, the mobile app has around 200 languages to exchange in. It is available on Android and iOS app stores.
The app is maintained by HelloTalk Inc. based in Shenzhen, China. The company has an estimated 50 employees.
Over half of the users are from China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. The CEO, Zackery Ngai (Wei Lihua), stated in 2023 that the app has over 1 million paid users and makes several million CNY monthly in revenue. [3]
In 2016, the app was reported to have 3 million users. [4] In May 2018, it reached 10 million users. [5] [6] It grew significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching 20 million downloads in 2020. [6]
HelloTalk is a freemium app, so certain features are limited or unavailable without becoming a member. For example, free users can only choose one foreign language to find partners for, but paid members can choose up to 23 languages. [6]
After a language is chosen, the user will be paired with native speakers of it who are interested in learning the user's own native language.