What WhatsApp's Makeover Means For Indian Users

When WhatsApp – the fastest growing messaging app – started trials of voice calls from the app within India, not many were surprised. Many of its peer group apps like Viber, BBM and Skype, have already tread down that path. According to reports, WhatsApp has been running trials of its voice calling service in India with a few users on an invite-only basis and only on Android. It is likely that other mobile platforms will also be tried at some stage considering WhatsApp's popularity across mobile platforms in India.

This is the second new service WhatsApp is getting into. Recently, it started its web version for Chrome browser users. Remember, Viber was already offering a web based interface along with the mobile app which supports Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone platforms. Of course, Apple's iOS users still cannot use WhatsApp's web app.

With the web interface, which is expected to be extended to other browsers soon and the voice calling facility, WhatsApp is expected to assume a position that few can match, especially in India. WhatsApp's growth, when compared to its peer group, has been spectacular and after its $19 billion acquisition by Facebook, its pace of growth has not slowed down. As of December 2014, WhatsApp had already clocked 600-700 million users globally. With over 70 million users, India could be its largest user base. 

And these numbers are increasing fast as in April-May 2014, WhatsApp had some 50 million users in India and added 20 million in the next 5-6 months. Popular micro blogging site Twitter, in contrast, has less than half of WhatsApp's numbers in India. Even the next most popular messaging app Hike has less than half of WhatsApp's numbers in India. Hike is followed by Line, Viber and WeChat who all have smaller numbers. According to some reports about 70 Billion messages, 1 billion pictures and 200 million videos are shared on WhatsApp daily.

While rival Viber has already cemented its place in the Internet voice calling sphere, and BBM, BlackBerry's proprietary messaging service which was opened up for other mobile platforms last year, have also gone voice, WhatsApp was the only big player that had not traversed this bastion. Even the home grown Hike Messenger, which is promoted by Bharti group chairman Sunil Mittal's son Kavin Mittal, has got into voice calling post its acquisition of Zip Phone, a VoIP provider. This was one area where WhatsApp was clearly lagging behind and understandably, losing audience. 

With WhatsApp coming into the voice calling arena, there is bound to be some stir among telecom service providers who may lose out on voice revenues considering the wide spread it has among Indian users, many of whom will avail of the voice calling facility peer to peer, or within groups. Considering Whatsapp's popularity within the youth, it could well be a big draw. This is likely to hit telecos' already falling voice revenues and cause some heartburn. 

Recently, Airtel, looking at such developments announced that it will price VoIP separately but beat a hasty retreat when criticism mounted on its decision. With a complete package, it is expected that WhatsApp will establish its monopoly over the messaging-calling market much the same way its parent Facebook has done in the social networking sphere. And, looking at its growth trajectory, that could happen sooner than expected.