WhatsApp witnesses 1.4 billion calls globally on New Year’s Eve 2020

WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram witnessed a record number of calls and live broadcasts on New Year’s Eve 2020 as people remained at home due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The outbreak of the disease and its subsequent spread to nearly all continents forced everyone across the world to adapt their lifestyle. At the time, video calling emerged as a new way for people to stay connected along with audio calls done through apps like WhatsApp and more.

As per some new statistics shared by Facebook, WhatsApp saw the most number of video and voice calls on New Year’s Eve. The last day of 2020 registered over 1.4 billion audio and video calls made on WhatsApp. The popular instant messaging app boasts of over 2 billion active users across the world and people using WhatsApp calling increased to more than 50% than the last New Year’s Eve. 

Moreover, Instagram Live and Facebook Live witnessed more than 55 million live broadcasts across the world globally on New Year’s Eve. Across its products, Facebook saw an uptick in calling features as opposed to last year. “Behind the scenes, Facebook Engineering came together to drive unprecedented efficiency improvements and make our infrastructure more resilient. This work includes load testing, disaster recovery testing and shuffling capacity. This year, New Year’s Eve looked a lot different, and we had engineering teams across Facebook’s apps, ready to support any issue, so the world could ring in 2021,” said Caitlin Banford, technical program manager at Facebook.

It’s clear as more and more people remain huddled up in their homes on New Year's Eve 2020, video calls rose to the occasion for them to connect with their loved ones to celebrate the new year. Facebook backed WhatsApp and Instagram saw a surge in users making voice and video calls along with a record number of Instagram live broadcasts.

WhatsApp recently went live with its payments service in India in partnership with major banks across the country. WhatsApp's users can now transfer money to other users via UPI. You can read how to set up WhatsApp payments and use it here. The messaging app has also added a new shopping button and add to cart option for users to easily shop on its app. Here’s everything you should know about it.

Follow Us

Digit NewsDesk

Digit News Desk writes news stories across a range of topics. Getting you news updates on the latest in the world of tech. View Full Profile