Facebook says the users of its subsidiary WhatsApp made 1.4 billion phone calls on 31 December 2020, which is the New Year’s Eve. WhatsApp calling increased over 50% compared to the same day last year, states the company release. The claim lacks data from India as calls in India are free except for Jio which announced free off-net voice calls from 1 January 2021. WhatsApp is a free messaging service that supports voice calls. In 2014, the messenger was acquired by Facebook for $19 bln.
In addition to calls, Instagram Live and Facebook Live were also used by the users. “There were more than 55 million live broadcasts across Facebook and Instagram globally on New Year’s Eve,” said the release. Instagram is also a subsidiary of Facebook.
Whatsapp calling is currently limited to the app and is being rolled out to Whatsapp Web users too as reported by beta testers. Whatsapp Video call can now accommodate 8 users at once.
In February 2020, Whatsapp had announced reaching 2 billion users worldwide. Although the current user statistics from India is not yet known, in July 2019, the company had announced reaching reached 400 million users in India making it the biggest market for WhatsApp. The monthly active users (MAU) in September 2019 is estimated to be 340 Million. Brazil is the other big market for Whatsapp with around 120 million users. The California origin means a little for Whatsapp’s US users and ranks 3rd among top markets for Whatsapp.