What have voice call feature in future:
The world's
biggest messaging service WhatsApp will add voice calls in the second quarter
of this year as chief executive Jan Koum said on Monday.
Already many
competitors South Korea’s Kakao Talk and China’s WeChat have punched a hole in
telecom operators in recent years by offering a free alternative to text
messaging.
The news that
the most powerful of them was adding voice calls to its service will likely be
seen as worrying for telecom operators globally, which got about $120 billion
from text messaging last year, according to market researcher Ovum.
In Mobile World
Congress in Barcelona on Monday, Koum said, "We are driven by the mission
that people should be able to stay in touch anywhere and affordably. Our goal
is to be on every mobile phone in the world”.
Koum said
WhatsApp's acquisition by Facebook would not alter his roadmap to develop the
product to reach the next 1 billion users. No advertising will added to the
service, he said.
WhatsApp's Koum
also sought to cast himself as a partner to telecom operators and not simply a
competitor. He announced a partnership with KPN's E-Plus under which it will
launch a WhatsApp branded mobile service in Germany.
"We are
working with carriers in established markets to bring value to end users,"
he said
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