New Delhi, Jan 28 (IANS): Home-grown chat application firm Hike Messenger has rolled out free voice-calling Hike Calls, a company statement said Wednesday.

The introduction of this feature will allow its users to call each other for free, over 2G, 3G and Wi-Fi and across the globe in over 200 countries. The introduction of such calls has come within a month of its first acquisition of a free calling app - Zip Phone.

"While building free hike calls, we kept two things in mind. Firstly, India is a very cost-sensitive market and as a result we’ve ensured that our service is extremely efficient on data. It means our users can pack in more minutes per MB when calling on hike,” Kavin Bharti Mittal, founder and chief executive officer, Hike Messenger said.

“Secondly, we’ve made Hike’s free calling service available globally in over 200 countries,” he added.

The free Hike calling feature has been launched in beta on Android, which contributes to over 90 percent of Hike’s user base. The iOS and Windows versions are slated for release by the end of this quarter.