WhatsApp to add voice calls after Facebook acquisition

BARCELONA-

WhatsApp will add free voice-call services for its 450 million customers later this year, laying down a new challenge to telecom network operators just days after Facebook Inc scooped it up for $19 billion.

The text-based messaging service aims to let users make calls by the second quarter, expanding its appeal to help it hit a billion users, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday.

Buying WhatsApp has cemented Facebook’s involvement in messaging, which for many people is their earliest experience with the mobile Internet. Adding voice services moves the social network into another core function on a smartphone.

On Monday, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg defended the price paid for a messaging service with negligible revenue. He argued that rival services such as South Korea’s KakaoTalk and Naver’s LINE are already “monetizing” at a rate of $2 to $3 in revenue per user per year, despite being in the early stages of growth.

Media reports put WhatsApp’s revenue at about $20 million in 2013.

“I actually think that by itself it’s worth more than 19 billion,” Zuckerberg told the Mobile World Congress. “Even just independently, I think it’s a good bet.”

“By being a part of Facebook, it makes it so they can focus for the next five years or so purely on adding more people.”

WhatsApp’s move into voice calls is unlikely to sit well with telecoms carriers.

WhatsApp and its rivals, like KakaoTalk, China’s WeChat, and Viber, have won over telecom operators’ customers in recent years by offering a free option to text messaging. Telecom providers globally generated revenue of about $120 billion from text messaging last year, according to market researcher Ovum.

Adding free calls threatens another telecom revenue source, which has been declining anyway as carriers’ tweak tariffs to focus on mobile data instead of calls.