Instant Messenger WhatsApp has rolled out voice calling for selected users in India and only on invite basis, this new feature can be used. Also only Android users can avail the free voice calling facility and the software update is not available in Google Play Store, but can be downloaded as an APK file via the official WhatsApp website section for Android.

WhatsApp has added this new feature to compete with local instant messenger Hike which has already launched the free voice calling. WhatsApp has recently launched the web version and users can now send messages to their friends from a desktop browsers. WhatsApp has about 700 million monthly users and about 30 billions messages are being shared everyday. The instant messenger was bought by Facebook last year for a record price.

This is huge threat to telecom operators as the web based applications are gain more strength. They have taken the issue to TRAI over the web based services that are hammering the SMS and voice revenues.

- TVR