WhatsApp Messenger a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS, recently bought by Facebook for $19 Billion, announced it is adding the Voice Call Feature later this year. Jan Koum, CEO at WhatsApp revealed that they plan compete with Whatsapp’s current counterparts and global mobile phone carriers.
The pricing model would remain the same low-cost model as WhatsApp’s messaging services, currently subscription based priced at $1 per year.
Voice Calling feature will be available on Whatsapp by the end of second quarter in 2014. This adds to what actually facebook has bought into, an active community now turning towards Voice Calling.
“We are here to make communication easy and affordable, be it messaging or voice. We became the leader in messaging because we focused on quality, and we are going to put the same focus on voice.” Jan Koum
Whatsapp is the world’s fastest growing services company. Since the deal has been announced between WhatsApp and Facebook, it added 15 million more users to its community, taking the overall user count to 465 million. If this continues, Whatsapp can give tough time to traditional carriers.
Jan Koum quote via Financial Times