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WhatsApp to Add Voice Calling in Q2 2014

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MacRumors

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum has announced at Mobile World Congress 2014 that the company will add voice calling to its popular messaging platform in Q2 2014, reports TechCrunch. The voice service will be added to iOS and Android first, with other platforms receiving the update at an unannounced future date.
We use the least amount of bandwidth and we use the hell out of it," he said. "We will focus on simplicity." Voice will come to Android and iOS first and then following on some Nokia and BlackBerry phones, he added.
Click to expand...
Koum also announced the popular cross-platform messaging service has grown to 465 million monthly active users and 330 million daily users, an increase of 15 million from the statistics released last December. The company recently was acquired by Facebook in a deal worth up to $19 billion, including $4 billion in cash, $12 billion in Facebook stock and an additional $3 billion in employee restricted stock units.

Little will change for WhatsApp users following the Facebook acquisition. Koum assured users the service will remain autonomous and operate independently of Facebook. It also won't change its "no marketing, no ads" strategy and will continue to remain reasonably priced with a $0.99 annual fee after the first free year.



Article Link: WhatsApp to Add Voice Calling in Q2 2014
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/24/whatsapp-voice-calling/
Serelus

Serelus

macrumors 6502a
Aug 11, 2009
673
132
Vm9pZA
Gotta compete with Telegram, people rapidly deleting accounts at the speed facebook isn't liking. QUICK tell everyone we're adding call support.
 
yoz-y

yoz-y

macrumors member
Dec 12, 2013
74
57
Serelus said:
Gotta compete with Telegram, people rapidly deleting accounts at the speed facebook isn't liking. QUICK tell everyone we're adding call support.
Click to expand...

Hm, I installed Telegram and asked around if people were interested. Nope, everybody uses Facebook Messenger or plain SMS, in France that is.
 
R

Rushli0n

macrumors regular
Aug 27, 2012
118
0
Will this mean that devices like iPod Touches will finally be allowed to use this app?
 
C

Chazz08

Cancelled
Dec 4, 2012
560
105
Serelus said:
Gotta compete with Telegram, people rapidly deleting accounts at the speed facebook isn't liking. QUICK tell everyone we're adding call support.
Click to expand...

I live where EVERYONE uses Whatsapp. The outage the other day made some people start downloading it. It's nice and simple to use, although I'm sure the servers are overloaded now with the mass downloads. It's free though, with no future plans of charging money. Right now, everyone here had whatsapp for free for years, but now that they are going to start charging, I'm interested to see what happens. Most people here don't have cards attached to their accounts, so they wouldn't be able to pay for it.
 
Serelus

Serelus

macrumors 6502a
Aug 11, 2009
673
132
Vm9pZA
yoz-y said:
Hm, I installed Telegram and asked around if people were interested. Nope, everybody uses Facebook Messenger or plain SMS, in France that is.
Click to expand...

I live in the netherlands, people aren't to happy with Facebooks purchase.

And when I first joined already 10 people were on telegram

Chazz08 said:
I live where EVERYONE uses Whatsapp. The outage the other day made some people start downloading it. It's nice and simple to use, although I'm sure the servers are overloaded now with the mass downloads. It's free though, with no future plans of charging money. Right now, everyone here had whatsapp for free for years, but now that they are going to start charging, I'm interested to see what happens. Most people here don't have cards attached to their accounts, so they wouldn't be able to pay for it.
Click to expand...

Honestly I just want the 16 billion they spend to go to waiste. Around here everyone uses it aswell, but people didn't have problems at all switching to an alternative aswell, alot of people now use both.
 
T

tann

macrumors 68000
Apr 15, 2010
1,944
813
UK
Next logical step!

Hopefully they make a desktop app (and non iPhone app e.g. iPod and iPad) so we can have true cross compatibility. But voice is very nice!
 
seecoolguy

seecoolguy

macrumors 6502
Nov 28, 2007
256
34
khfoong said:
facetime is good..

whatsapp aims to be simple...
the enemy is TELCOS... charging us airtime..

Kills the telcos..
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But now in the states plans give you unlimited minutes but limit your data? Unless your on wifi how do you kill the telcos?
 
2

2457282

Suspended
Dec 6, 2012
3,327
3,015
MacRumors said:
Koum also announced the popular cross-platform messaging service has grown to 465 million monthly active users and 330 million daily users, an increase of 15 million from the statistics released last December.

It also won't change its "no marketing, no ads" strategy and will continue to remain reasonably priced with a $0.99 annual fee after the first free year.

Article Link: WhatsApp to Add Voice Calling in Q2 2014
Click to expand...

So, if I do a simple math, I get a potential $465 million income per year for Whatsapp. At that rate it will take 38 years to break even on the investment Facebook made. I can only guess that there is something else going on here that they are investing in. Maybe they will have an additional charge for the voice or something? But if they stay with no ads and only charge 99 cents per year, I do not see the $19,000,000,000.00 investment making any sense.
 
LordQ

LordQ

Suspended
Sep 22, 2012
3,582
5,653
So Zuckerberg can hear me now as well? No, thanks. Already moved to Telegram (and iMessage with my friends with iPhone).
 
E

everything-i

macrumors 6502a
Jun 20, 2012
827
2
London, UK
Lets face it Facebook is haemorrhaging users at the moment and they needed something to up their user base. I can't see this making any real difference as most young people now see Facebook as something to avoid and its only a matter of time before this starts to be noticeable. WhatsApp has a lot of competitors so I don't see their user base staying too stable either now they are part of FB.
 
S

seble

macrumors 6502a
Sep 6, 2010
972
163
yoz-y said:
Hm, I installed Telegram and asked around if people were interested. Nope, everybody uses Facebook Messenger or plain SMS, in France that is.
Click to expand...

I just don't get how a service can claim to be free and not use Ads and provide a service for free? Like how does it get its money? Selling my messages? Always weary of apps like that.
 
K

Karma*Police

macrumors 68030
Jul 15, 2012
2,514
2,850
Apple should just open up FaceTime and iMessage and try to make it the defacto standard. It's a slight inconvenience for non-iPhone users cos they'll have to download it and Apple can force ads on them while iPhone users get to communicate with *everyone* simply and elegantly just as they do today with other iPhone users.
 
O

osaga

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2012
454
170
So Whatsapp became so popular because people needed an IP text messaging service for Android, because they were limited to a certain number of free SMS messages, and because sending photos on sms was unreliable/not possible.

Is that correct? Why didn't Android ship with an iMessages like app built in? What would happen to Whatsapp if they started charging for the service and Google provided a free IP based messaging app? Someone educate me.
 
eXan

eXan

macrumors 601
Jan 10, 2005
4,731
63
Russia
osaga said:
So Whatsapp became so popular because people needed an IP text messaging service for Android, because they were limited to a certain number of free SMS messages, and because sending photos on sms was unreliable/not possible.

Is that correct? Why didn't Android ship with an iMessages like app built in? What would happen to Whatsapp if they started charging for the service and Google provided a free IP based messaging app? Someone educate me.
Click to expand...

Idk about that scenario, but my circle started usштп Whatsapp because it was a way to avoid sms charges, and allowed quick and reliable way to share photos and videos. Russia, btw, and none I know use Android.
 
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W

wowotoe

macrumors regular
Jun 25, 2007
133
156
WhatsApp is kind of outdated in Asia. Everyone is now using LINE or WeChat. Both have voice & video calling. And LINE is already 100x profitable than WhatsApp on selling emoticons.
 
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