WhatsApp, the free texting app acquired by Facebook for $19bn last week, will open a new front in its war on the cost of mobile communications by introducing free voice calls within months.
Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s co-founder, made the announcement at Mobile World Congress, an annual gathering of industry executives in Barcelona.
The Ukranian-born entrepreneur, who became a billionaire nearly seven times over last Wednesday, also revealed WhatsApp has continued its astonishing growth since Facebook swooped. In less than a week it has added a further 15 million active users per month to take the total beyond 465m, he said.
Mr Koum said: “We’re going to introduce voice on WhatsApp in the second quarter of this year.
“We want to make sure people always have the ability to stay in touch and call their friends and family, and their loved ones, and do it easily and affordably.
This move is obviously good news to students in Ghana and worldwide since WhatsApp is used by a great percentage of students with internet enabled phones/devices.
