TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Facedrive Inc. (“Facedrive”) (TSXV: FD), a Canadian “people-and-planet-first” tech ecosystem, is delighted to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, HiRide Share Ltd. (“HiRide”), a socially-responsible peer-to-peer platform offering innovative transportation and communication solutions, has surpassed 1,500,000 downloads of its HiQ Social App, continuing to demonstrate its growing international popularity. Moreover, the HiQ team is excited to introduce new features to the app to further improve user experience and allow a wide range of customization.
HiQ (“the App”) is a socialization platform that invites users to stay connected while practicing social distancing and encourages interactions based on common interests. Its unique concept is making HiQ an international leader among trivia apps, especially popular among millennials, and allows the app to compete with social networking platform giants in an industry worth USD$52.7bn in the USA alone (Ibisworld.com, 2020).
The idea to create HiQ emerged in the wake of the soaring demand for online communication tools geared both for business and personal use, doubling the number of downloads of chat apps since the month of February (Source: Statista, 2020). Adopting a pioneer approach in the chat app industry by enhancing its communication platform with gamification features and trivia challenges, HiQ disrupted the space and secured a niche for itself that is virally growing its following. This is reflected by the app’s ratings on both the Google Play Store and the App Store, proving that HiQ is the new application of choice for people to Connect, Play and Win.
Last week, the HiQ team released one of its newest features, Communities, which offers users ability to interact with other like-minded users through AI based algorithms, build meaningful relationships and foster a sense of togetherness in these online communities with in-app group messaging. Moreover, users can also compete in trivia games, choosing topics that are of top interest in the community. Users can also track their points compared to other users in their communities with the leaderboard feature. In these unprecedented times, socialization has become a real challenge for many people, and these communities provides the opportunity to make a real connection in an unreal time. HiQ has always focused on paving the way for socialization, and this rollout has accelerated it to continue fulfilling its vision. Within the first week of this new feature’s release, HiQ has grown to host over 10,000 active communities made by users. The HiQ team plans to continue adding numerous new features in response to the international growth and popularity of the HiQ platform. The roadmap of new releases includes such features as head-to-head trivia battles, in-app calling, and new trending trivia categories. The new features will allow the app to compete on equal footing not only in the trivia section, but also in the messaging and social media sections.
“We are proud to see how the HiQ app continues to win over hundreds of thousands of new users. Many of them have become regular users and friends not only of HiQ, but of the entire ecosystem of the Facedrive platforms. We are confident that 1.5MM downloads is just a start of this exciting journey, and our HiQ team is working hard to add functions that go beyond messaging and trivia games. We will be ready to announce new products that are currently in the final stages of development jointly with our sports prediction partner platform very soon, so stay tuned for the upcoming updates,” said CEO and Chairman of Facedrive Sayan Navaratnam.
“Our team has been working to find ways to improve user experience. During these turbulent times, socializing and being a part of a community has been difficult for many of us. Understanding this, our team introduced the community feature in HiQ a week ago. The community feature allows users to create their private communities and compete in trivia. Since the launch of the ad-on, we’ve seen over 10,000 private communities created. Our team is adding more features to the app in the coming days to improve the user experience. We are really glad that our application is growing and being part of the solution in this unprecedented situation,” said Akshat Soni, CEO of HiRide.
About HiRide
HiRide is an evolution in car-pooling. HiRide is an innovative, first-of-its-kind long-distance travel car-pooling app that seeks to change the face of transportation for commuters. HiRide’s mission is to transport students and professionals all across the globe to their desired destinations while reducing the negative impact of the ridesharing segment on the environment. HiRide is an entirely new, people-powered global transport network that connects drivers with empty seats to passengers looking for a ride. HiRide’s goal is to make travel and social life efficient as well as more affordable for its members worldwide. This is achieved through its offering of an innovative platform, dedicated customer service, and a fast-growing community of users. HiQ is a socialization and gaming mobile application that encourages users to stay connected and engaged while social distancing.
For more about HiRide, visit www.hiride.ca.
About Facedrive
Facedrive is a multi-faceted “people-and-planet first” platform offering socially-responsible services to local communities with a strong commitment to doing business fairly, equitably and sustainably. Facedrive Rideshare was the first to offer green transportation solutions in the TaaS space, planting thousands of trees and giving users a choice between EVs, hybrids and conventional vehicles. Facedrive Marketplace offers curated merchandise created from sustainably sourced materials. Facedrive Foods offers contactless deliveries of a wide variety of foods with the focus on healthy foods right to consumers’ doorsteps. Facedrive Health develops innovative technological solutions to the most acute health challenges of the day. Facedrive is changing the ridesharing, food delivery, e-commerce and health tech narratives for the better, for everyone.
For more about Facedrive, visit www.facedrive.com.
Facedrive Inc.
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www.facedrive.com
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