WhatsApp, which was recently acquired by Facebook for $19 billion, is planning to launch a voice service this year, putting it in direct competition with the likes of Skype and other chat app contemporaries.
WhatsApp is the darling of the tech media this week, especially after the announcement that Facebook had acquired the Mountain View, CA-based startup for $19 billion. This acquisition was mainly done to bolster Facebook’s mobile strategy, analysts say, and WhatsApp’s latest announcement highlights this point.
At Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum has announced that the company is finally moving into voice communications. This has been considered a surprise move, because the company has, for so long, held against stacking features atop its fairly simple messaging platform. Koum says the company will leverage the fact that its service is not bandwidth-heavy. “We use the least amount of bandwidth and we use the hell out of it,” Koum said, adding that Whatsapp will continue to “focus on simplicity.”
This puts WhatsApp in competition squarely against Skype and other platforms that offer richer features atop simple messaging. For instance, LINE, Viber, WeChat and Kakao Talk — all of Asian origin — already offer voice calling, apart from social networking features. Notably, WhatsApp is not quite popular in these markets, particularly Japan and South Korea (where LINE and Kakao Talk originate, respectively). In China, locally-developed apps like WeChat are dominant.
Perhaps WhatsApp is planning to tackle these growth markets in its aim to grow to a billion users. Koum proudly announced that the service now has 465 million active users, an increase of 15 million since the previous week, when the acquisition by Facebook was announced.
Koum added that the company is working closely with carriers around the world in offering discounted data access rates for users who text (and, in future, call) through the app.
Source: TechCrunch
At Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum has announced that the company is finally moving into voice communications. This has been considered a surprise move, because the company has, for so long, held against stacking features atop its fairly simple messaging platform. Koum says the company will leverage the fact that its service is not bandwidth-heavy. “We use the least amount of bandwidth and we use the hell out of it,” Koum said, adding that Whatsapp will continue to “focus on simplicity.”
This puts WhatsApp in competition squarely against Skype and other platforms that offer richer features atop simple messaging. For instance, LINE, Viber, WeChat and Kakao Talk — all of Asian origin — already offer voice calling, apart from social networking features. Notably, WhatsApp is not quite popular in these markets, particularly Japan and South Korea (where LINE and Kakao Talk originate, respectively). In China, locally-developed apps like WeChat are dominant.
Perhaps WhatsApp is planning to tackle these growth markets in its aim to grow to a billion users. Koum proudly announced that the service now has 465 million active users, an increase of 15 million since the previous week, when the acquisition by Facebook was announced.
Koum added that the company is working closely with carriers around the world in offering discounted data access rates for users who text (and, in future, call) through the app.
Source: TechCrunch
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