WhatsApp plans to add VoIP to message service
BARCELONA — On the heels of its blockbuster deal to be bought by Facebook, WhatsApp announced that it would start offering free voice services later this year — diversifying beyond its main messaging service into phone calls.
Speaking at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona on Monday, the tech company’s chief executive, Jan Koum, said users in the second quarter would be able to make Internet calls through their smartphones similar to services that are already available on rival Internet messaging offerings like Kakao of South Korea and Viber of Cyprus.
WhatsApp’s voice service is expected to be available first on Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems, and then expand to others like Windows Phone and BlackBerry, he added.
WhatsApp’s push to offer its users Internet voice calls is the first announcement since Facebook agreed to buy the company last week for $16 billion. The final price could rise to $19 billion with WhatsApp employees and founders receiving an additional $3 billion in restricted stock, which would vest over the next four years.
At a separate event at Mobile World Congress, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said that he got a bargain buying WhatsApp, because the ser- vice could reach a billion users.
WhatsApp says it has 465 million monthly users.
“By itself, WhatsApp is worth more than $19 billion,” Zuckerberg said. “Few services in the world can reach 1 billion users, and they are all valuable.”
Zuckerberg said the acquisition, the largest ever by his company, would allow WhatsApp to focus on connecting more people around the world, instead of having to generate revenue if it had remained an independent company.
Currently, the messaging service has more than 40 million users in India, and 38 million in Brazil, according to the company. The start-up also has 31 million users in Germany, though it did not provide numbers on its U.S. user base.
Koum played down rumors that the deal with Facebook would lead to major changes to how WhatsApp operates, including the potential addition of advertising and other revenue-generating services.
Koum also said Monday that WhatsApp would introduce a mobile brand in a partnership with the German cellphone carrier E-Plus, but offered few other specifics.
“For WhatsApp to be successful, it has to stay independent,” Koum said Monday. “There are no planned changes.”
By expanding into voice, WhatsApp is going headto-head with the likes of Skype and traditional cellphone operators like AT&T and Deutsche Telekom. Analysts say the move also could lead Facebook to revamp its own mobile offerings, which have centered on software called Home that has won few fans since it was released last year.