The most popular WhatsApp messenger in the world to introduce the function of voice calls for users of Android, on stage - winners iPhone and Windows Phone. According to telecom analyst at research firm Ovum Pamela Clark-Dickson, the service is able to "bury" Cellular Phones.
A week ago, WhatsApp, behind which has already fixed the title of "killer SMS», introduced a feature of Internet calls for users of Android. This week support WhatsApp confirmed that a similar approach to the release for owners of the iPhone and Windows Phone. Given the growing demand for the company's plans WhatsApp pose a serious threat to the existing mobile operators, wrote Rbc . At present, the number of active users in the world's most popular messenger greater than 700 million people a month (exchanging more than 30 billion messages per day), and taking into account the current rate of growth by the end of the year it will be over 1 billion.
Unlike other messengers (WeChat, Kik and Facebook Messenger), seeking to become a comprehensive platform for the aggregation of diverse functions (content hosting, booking, online orders), WhatsApp remains true to his communication purpose.
But even with limited functionality, the company was in no hurry with the launch of the new options and missed "deadline", originally set for the second half of 2014. The thing is that a stable voice messaging system (IP-telephony) is much more complicated than instant messaging (IM). Developers have to fix the various problems associated with unstable compound, which are well known to users of Skype. Under these conditions, the founders of WhatsApp Kum Yang and Brian Acton chose to first ensure the reliability of the service.
At present, the function calls WhatsApp for Windows Phones platforms and iOS already tested about 20 million mobile subscribers in Germany, says Pamela Clark-Dickson, citing sources close to Facebook. WhatsApp social network bought in 2014 for $ 22 billion.
Operators lose money
WhatsApp may affect the income of mobile operators is much more serious than the other messengers - Line, Viber or Skype, because they occupy a smaller share of the mobile platforms, according to Ovum.
According to experts, this alarming news for telecom companies such as AT & T or Vodafone, for two reasons. WhatsApp expansion coincides with the gradual transformation of the relations of operators and subscribers. Recent perceive operators already wider than before - not as a telecommunications service providers, and only as providers of data services.
And it will cost operators revenue. Revenues from voice services fell in all market players, according to Ovum analyst Stuart Taylor. He predicts that in 2018 the first time revenues from mobile decreased due to services such as WhatsApp, which encourage customers to switch from using the operator minutes to transfer data.
According to the Ovum, 2014 WhatsApp users have already reduced revenue from mobile operators SMS to $ 33 billion (revenue shortfall). And that number is growing - at the end of 2015 a similar loss of operators will be $ 54 billion, but only in the period from 2012 to 2018 because of the messengers industry will miss $ 386 billion, predicts Ovum.
While global revenues from mobile data will grow by 8% annually and will reach $ 586.4 billion by 2019, revenues from voice services will fall by 3% per year and will drop to $ 472.7 billion in the same period. Most of the proceeds of "voices" will lose North America and Western Europe - regions, accounting for almost 80% of the global drop in revenues from voice services.
Cisco predicts that from 2013 to 2018, the volume of mobile data traffic will increase 11-fold, but the ARPU (average check for one subscriber per month) will be reduced, since the cost of data services will be cheaper. This can be compared with the visitors McDonald's, who bought ten times more buying with only french fries.