Sachin Tendulkar's Viber public chat hits 1 million followers

Sachin Tendulkar's public chat on Viber platform has exceeded one million followers, in less than a month after its launch on 18 November.

''Exceeding one million followers in less than a month for one of our public chats is an important milestone for Viber,'' said Talmon Marco, Viber's CEO. ''Our vision for public chats was to provide people with a 'fly on the wall' experience of what their favourite celebrities and personalities were chatting about."

The chat on the cricketer helps users get an insider's view into his world on a daily basis.

''Globally, it's our first group to hit this magic number. For us, this is just the start of Viber public chats gaining popularity in India and testimony to its tremendous growth in the social media space," said Anubhav Nayyar, Viber country manager for India.

India is the largest country for Viber - a mobile communications application offering free messaging and HD-quality calls - globally, with 33 million users.

In November, Tendulkar launched his chat by saying, ''Glad to be on Viber. This will be a great platform for me to connect with all my fans and loved ones. I will be putting up a lot of exclusive pictures on this platform so keep following".

Viber's public chat allows users to discover, share and follow live discussions with a number of celebrities, personalities and brands across many genres including music, sports, fashion and entertainment among others.

Other popular public chats on Viber include British singer-songwriter Pixie Lott with almost 570,000 followers and international DJ Paul van Dyk with almost 225000 followers among others.