WhatsApp application is now being used to make more than 100 million calls each day, the company revealed on its official blog. That comes to more than 1,100 calls made each second.
What makes the feat even more impressive is that achievement in just over a year of voice call launching as part of an extensive makeover for the messaging app. It was only in last April that WhatsApp had launched the feature.
WhatsApp has already over a billion users who make a huge user base to tap into with any new feature that it introduces. The above also highlights a growing trend of adopting online voice calling technology bypassing the standard cellular connection.
That again has much to do with cost saving as its standard internet charges that apply to online voice calls compared to the call charges imposed by cellular companies. While the former comes out a bit cheaper, what also favors online calls is the growing emergence of free Wi-Fi hotspots that is providing further impetus to online voice calls.
However, so much for all the benefits that online voice calls make for vis-a-vis its conventional counterpart, online calls can often be crappy as getting the best signal can prove challenging at times. That applies more to free Wi-Fi zones.
Nevertheless, WhatsApp’s new record is bound to draw a comparison with Microsoft’s Skype that has been offering voice calls for over a decade now, a dozen years to be precise. In contrast, Skype boasts of a user base of just around 300 million. With WhatsApp being attuned better for mobile usage, experts claim that makes for a huge advantage over rivals such as Skype. Skype, in turn, is seen more as a desktop application.
Also, with WhatsApp reported being working on introducing video calls as well, that no doubt will allow it to compete even better against Skype. The company though is yet to commit to any fixed launch schedule for introducing the video call feature.
Skype, on its part, is also going through a major makeover with Microsoft keen to include it as part of its UWP efforts where the greater focus will be on its usage on mobile devices.
In another related development, WhatsApp has also launched a beta update that comes with several new features such as bigger emoji, public groups, and mentions. That is not all as users will also be able to share music files though it’s available to only Apple Music as of now.
Further, both the sender and receiver need to be paid Apple Music subscriber to be able to share music files. The feature is still in beta and will see a wider launch sometime soon.
