The WhatsApp application is displayed on a iPhone on April 6, 2016 in San Anselmo, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Justin Sullivan)
WhatsApp affirmed in February that the messenger service attained one billion users globally. This week, the Facebook-owned company announced that it is handling 100 million calls on its service daily.
These calls are made utilizing the WhatsApp Calling, a feature that allows users to remain in touch with others through voice calls, a blog post on the company's website stated. Currently, over 100 million voice calls are made daily via WhatsApp, which is more than 1,100 calls every second.
Stating that the company is "humbled" that such a large number of users have found this feature of the app so useful, WhatsApp announced through the post that they are committed to improving the service further in the ensuing months.
The voice calling attribute of WhatsApp is an excellent substitute to using the phone to make the call. This facility is not only considered to be inexpensive and more convenient, but it is perhaps also safer as far as privacy is concerned.
It is indeed remarkable that the voice calling is a relatively new feature of WhatsApp was introduced by the company on Android in March 2015 and, subsequently, brought it to iOS in the next month. At its launch, the messenger service had an estimated 800 million monthly active users and claimed to be handling more messages compared to the SMS texts sent globally every day.
Similar to texting, numerous people are dumping the dedicated voice calling of their phones for using various messenger apps like WhatsApp and Skype. There are several reasons for this change and they generally entail issues such as encryption, superior call quality and easy group calling techniques. In addition, some apps offer cheaper or even free voice calls compared to certain phone plans, Tech Crunch reported.
Incidentally, competitors of WhatsApp such as Skype and Facebook's Messenger usually do not announce their voice calling milestones in the same manner. As a result, it is difficult to compare the voice calling services of these apps.
While Skype, owned by Microsoft, claimed that it deals with up to 3 billion minutes of calls every day, this figure actually talks about the talk time, and not the number of calls. On the other hand, Facebook announced in April that it has 900 million active users and said that Messenger comprises 10% of the company's global VOIP.
Watch how to enable WhatsApp voice calling feature below:
