Whatsapp To Introduce Free Calls From April 2014
WhatsApp Inc., the mobile messaging service
that agreed to be acquired last 2 weeks by
Facebook Inc. for $19 billion, said Monday that it
would offer voice calling as early as April,
allowing free phone calls among WhatsApp's
465 million users. Jan Koum, the co-founder and
chief executive of WhatsApp, also said during a
speech at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
that he is hoping to grow the service to one or
two billion users. Mr. Koum said that the
WhatsApp voice product would "focus on
simplicity" as it has with its text-based
messaging service. He said that WhatsApp
would first release a version of the voice service
for Apple Inc.'s, iPhone and Google Inc.'s
Android platforms, followed by services for
Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Phone, as well as
some phones by BlackBerry Ltd. and Nokia Corp.
"We want to continue to have that minimalistic
approach to the product," he said. "We at
WhatsApp want to get out of the way and let
people communicate." Mr. Koum added that the
voice product would "use the least amount of
bandwidth, and we optimize the hell out of it."
Speaking about the Facebook acquisition
announcement earlier this month, Mr. Koum said
that the product wouldn't change, stressing that
WhatsApp would remain independent. He cited
Instagram's example, after the acquisition of
the photo-sharing service by Facebook.
Mr. Koum said that WhatsApp was likely
valuable to Facebook because "we both want to
make the world more connected," though Mr.
Koum stressed that WhatsApp wanted to know
"as little as possible" about its users, including
details such as a user's name. "There are no
plans to change anything that we do with the
product today," he said, using words like
"minimalistic," "utilitarian" and "uncluttered" to
describe his philosophy.
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