WhatsApp voice calls slowly being rolled out

Company has been promising phone calls from the app for nearly a year — but they finally seem to be arriving

WhatsApp is slowly rolling out its long-expected voice calling feature, with some users in India claiming to have gained early access to the service.


A user called pradnesh07 posted on Reddit that the feature had been activated in their WhatsApp. But the post has since been removed.

A video posted by the same user is still online, however, and shows how the feature will work.

Purported screenshots of the feature show a WhatsApp calling list, similar to the one on phones, that allows users to call contacts.

The new feature is said to be in WhatsApp version 2.11.508, which hasn’t yet been released. It is thought to be available only for Android initially.

The company said almost exactly a year ago that it would roll out voice calls. In February 2014, it said that would use the feature to grow yet more.

“We use the least amount of bandwidth and we use the hell out of it,” said Jan Koum, as reported by Techcrunch at the time. “We will focus on simplicity.”

It said then that the feature would come in 2014, but it has not yet been publicly announced.

WhatsApp was not available for comment.