India’s “Twitter” SMS GupShup Grows To 26 Million Users, Eyes Expansion To Southeast Asia

India is a huge market for social networks, with Facebook, Orkut and even Twitter vying for a share of the growing number of web users who are increasingly flocking to social networks in their day-to-day routines. One Indian social network is seeing considerable success on a different platform: mobile. SMS GupShup, a Twitter-like service in India that is primarily accessed via SMS, has grown to 26 million users and now accounts for 5 percent of all text messages sent within India. We previously wrote about the network here.

Part of SMS GupShup’s success has been due to the immense popularity of mobile devices in India. Currently there are 550 million mobile phone users in the country and only 50 million web users, says SMS GupShup's CEO and co-founder Beerud Sheth. With a 10 to 1 mobile-to-PC ratio and SMS serving as the most popular communications platform, the market is ripe for SMS GupShup to take off. SMS GupShup is currently processing over 480 million messages a month and accounts for an astounding 5 percent of all texts sent within India. Sheth told me that other countries are on the horizon for SMS GupShup, with a focus on entering Southeast Asian markets, including Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.