WhatsApp is gearing towards adding voice calls to its popular messaging app/service. Speaking with TNW, the company’s representatives said that this feature will be unveiled at some point in the second quarter of the year.
As I’m writing this, WhatsApp has more than 450 million users, 320 million of which are considered active every month. Just imagine if all these users suddenly start talking with one another – WhatsApp would need many more servers. Luckily it got a fresh influx of cash from Facebook, which surely could back any service with the proper infrastructure.
Going forward, it’s easy to imagine further extension of the voice service; some sort of WhatsApp Out (a la Skype Out) could be launched to allow low-cost VoIP calls to mobile phones and landlines. We’ll see how that goes; stay tuned in the meantime…