The Pakistani startup Pring we wrote about last year has come a long way with more than 3 million mobile users and now sending a staggering 12 million SMS everyday.
It’s founder Muhammad Nasrullah tells me that Pring grows everyday by 8,000-15,000 users in Pakistan. Their growth has principally been via word-of-mouth with friends inviting friends.
Just in case if you aren’t familiar, Pring works in a simple way: to get updates from ProPakistani, simply SMS follow propakistani to 9900.
This is a way of following a friend/brand or a celebrity that has a Pring account. So if you send an SMS to 9900 with “follow propakistani”, you will start getting updates via text messages from us, and that’s it.
Users can also comment by replying via SMS, which will appear on the web. Anyone can create a profile and anyone can follow accounts on Pring.
Note: Sending an SMS to 9900 will cost you Rs. 0.5+Tax (around ~61 paisas total) for Ufone, Telenor, Zong and Mobilink or Rs 0.05+Tax (around ~6 paisas) for Warid. Though receiving SMS from pring is free.
Pakistan recently crossed 20 million internet users but it is still a small number as compared to 108.9 million mobile subscribers, and this is where Pring hopes to capture the market.
"Social networking is the most important way we find news and discover new information. It shouldn’t be limited to just a few users with internet access. By enabling social networking for any cellphone in Pakistan, Pring makes information accessible to any Pakistani" says Nasrullah.
Pring aims to be a better social network than Twitter by giving users more flexibility like large updates, Urdu & multilingual support, ability to search & find friends, commenting & threading and advanced mobile features.
"SMS has become most important communication medium in the world. There are 4 billion mobile users (and 1.6 billion internet users world-wide), but there is no social network that does a good job of catering to these billions of mobile users. Unlike Twitter, SMS users on Pring are not second class citizens."
Does this mean Pring is a Social Network for the Poor? For users without access to the internet, without a smartphone?
"No. A Social Network like Pring cannot exist in isolation, that is why we integrate with Facebook and Twitter. It is important to understand that people at the top of the pyramid with access to internet and television generate lots of information because of their means. Whereas the people at the bottom of the pyramid consume more information because they lack access. For free flow of information, Pring caters to both. So, if you’re an internet user, you can join Pring without a cellphone. You can join via it’s website and it is absolutely free." says Nasrullah.
When I asked about the business sense of Pring and how they intend to make it profitable, Nasrullah said that they don’t plan to make money by charging end users. In fact he was determined to make Pring as much free he possibly can.
To keep things rolling, Nasrullah intends to generate revenues with advance tools for business such as Data Analytics, Sentiment Analysis, Mobile Coupons, PoS Tools, User Feedback, Polls etc which help in their commercial decisions and planning. “Pring is doing well in this front by working with notable brands”, he added.
Here’s a selected list of brands and organizations doing business with Pring:
- Djuice
- Nokia
- Dominos
- Levi’s
- Pakistan Today
- US General Consulate
- Sunsilk
- Subway
- Gloria Jeans Coffee
Talking about the future of Pring, Nasrullah tells us that their plan is to make Pring the largest Social Network in Pakistan. They want everyone to go mobile without any barriers. “The world deserves a better, all-inclusive mobile social network”, he concluded.
follow veenamalik 9900
mujhy btao kh men kea kron kh sms falo kr skon
Are you saying that he is not making money out of it?
WE LOVE PRING BUT PLEASE SMS SENDING TAX KHATAM KARO
WANA AASTA ASTA HUMRAE SUB DOST PRING CHORTE JA RAHAE HAIN
ADD INFO786 NO BORING UPDATES
Sounds too good to be true, is there any proof of this ?
Great Achievement! Take it international!
This is total bullshit. I know from company insiders that they have 70,000 users. Ever heard of ChOpaal (SMSall.pk)? Started in 2007 — used by all major political parties and they claim 3 million users. Pring started a few months ago, and with 10 clients they claim 3 million users (while their network runs on a demo mode on one of the operators; Warid). They got a short code perhaps 3 months ago! I am surprised that no due diligence was done in writing this article — bad PR for propakistani!
Hey Saira,
I’m Nasrullah the founder of Pring and I would like to correct a few things you mention. We’re a social Network like Twiter where as Chopaal is Group-Chat something like MSN over SMS. We’re not competing Chopaal, just like a Ferrari can’t compete with a Mehran. Lying about ‘insiders’ doesn’t help, the figures we have given are true, you can compare the traffic on both sites via compete.com and alexa.com
Shehbaz Sharif (PMLN), Imran Khan (PTI) and Faisal Sakhi (PPP) all use Pring, you can look for them online. Our short codes have existed the longest before anyone even in case of SMSAll.
So, if you have anything of actual substance to add, I’ll be glad to answer. But please don’t throw around random lies.
Hey Nash !
You are right. Pring is a largest social mobile network of Pakistan. We are thankful to You for providing us Pring facility on all network without too much costs.
But here Somethings should be improved. If someone have 100 Follower he/she cannot send more than 1 updates per hour and 10 per day.
on th other side twitter is providing unlimited updates per day.
Pring also providing Verified Account but it is not for Public..
Pring Office Should be open where people can get verified Accounts after investigation by pring if they elegible or not.
Over All Pring is best for Pakistanies… I like this service.
Saira, your true in your words & Amir is also seems now to be like a pakistani media person, he goes there where there are handsome offers…
May be he is getting me as we also requested the same things 2,3 times but we got ignored.
Saira is not agreeing with above because it appears she’s from competition… and same is case with you Shehzad…
How to get an article published on ProPakistani? Please guide.
nasrullah tell me that why he band us there is no solid reason they band without any reason. nasrulla wo time bhol gya jab pring start hoi thi ham users late the ye ham se suggestion leta tha. bad me isne ham sabko block kia jab pring huge hoi to. 2 reply tak karna chor gya.
Wow, if the rates of SMS keeps on dropping like up to this level, these rates would be doubling with in the next 3 to 6 month time….
Reads like a paid marketing article for pring. Didn’t know ProPakistani did paid articles?
Follow D-News at Pring.
50,000+ Followers
Pring is an excellent service, very interesting and a great addition in Social Networking Pakistan. I want to congratulate Pring team for such a success and hope they will coming up with new and interesting ideas. :)
I hope the social media marketing industry is getting the best out of it in Pakistan since this seems to be a product worth exploring
ok
kia
Is there any other service like Pring?
Looks Like a Paid article, Pring is Not good, The Limit of messages per day and per hour is totally a stupid thing.
Why one should wait for an hour if someone has anything special to share?