The
world's biggest messaging service WhatsApp, which Facebook has just
bought for $19 billion, will add voice calls to its product in the
second quarter of this year, its chief executive Jan Koum said on
Monday.
With 450 million users worldwide,
WhatsApp and its competitors South Korea's KakaoTalk and China's WeChat
have punched a hole in telecom operators' revenue in recent years by
offering a free alternative to text messaging.
The
news that the most powerful of them was adding voice calls to its
service will likely be seen as worrying for telecom operators globally,
which got about $120 billion from text messaging last year, according to
market researcher Ovum.
"We are driven by the
mission that people should be able to stay in touch anywhere and
affordably. Our goal is to be on every mobile phone in the world," Koum
said on Monday, speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Koum
said WhatsApp's acquisition by Facebook would not alter his roadmap to
develop the product to reach the next 1 billion users. No advertising
will added to the service, he said.
Facebook's Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg was also slated to speak at 5pm GMT.
WhatsApp's
Koum also sought to cast himself as a partner to telecom operators and
not simply a competitor. He announced a partnership with KPN's E-Plus
under which it will launch a WhatsApp branded mobile service in Germany.
"We are working with carriers in established markets to bring value to end users," he said.
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