The explosive growth WhatsApp has seen across the globe recently, coupled with the accelerating trend of smartphone growth into 2015, bodes well for the company's imminent addition of voice to its instant messaging platform - especially in emerging markets - say analysts.
Ovum analyst Richard Hurst says developing markets - in terms of consumers and service providers - are likely to feel the effects of WhatsApp's voice over IP (VOIP) feature most acutely; the VOIP service is set for launch in the first quarter of this year.
"The effect will be felt more in emerging markets like SA and Africa, than other markets that are less price-sensitive."
ICT expert Adrian Schofield notes it is too expensive to equip emerging markets with wired services, which have historically been absent. "Wireless-based broadband services will be predominant in emerging markets. Growth will come from network technology."
While the desire to send and receive content is there, says Schofield, the ability to benefit from a wireless technology is far stronger in emerging markets that were previously deprived of it.
Hurst cautions, however, a trade-off inevitably exists when it comes to the ability to provide a quality service.
Voice delay
WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum recently alluded to a focus on quality - particularly in emerging markets - citing technical issues around this as being the reason for the protracted delay in bringing the company's free voice service to market.
Koum confirmed in October last year that WhatsApp Voice was set for launch in the first quarter of 2015, rather than the original timeframe of the second quarter of 2014.
According to industry monitor FierceWireless, Koum - speaking at Re/code's Code/Mobile conference in California - said the company had a number of technical issues to overcome before it could launch seamless voice calling.
The CEO is cited as saying the company needed to overcome the issue of poor data coverage, especially considering many of the app's users hail from emerging markets, many of which still rely on 2G/EDGE technology for mobile coverage.
Schofield says, in light of WhatsApp owner Facebook's deep pockets, there is sure to be investment in better quality connections, as is the case with Microsoft-owned VOIP service Skype. "It will be interesting to see how [Facebook and Microsoft] manage to do this through software and if it will be possible to manage the packets that make up voice in a way that they are presented seamlessly, [circumventing] the hardware shortcomings that exist."
Last February, ITWeb reported at least 10.6 million South African adults use WhatsApp on their phones, according to World Wide Worx. At the time, MD of the local research firm, Arthur Goldstuck, said WhatsApp looked set to overtake "everyone".
Far-reaching footprint
While the seamlessness of a WhatsApp voice call remains to be seen, Hurst notes the company's popularity - evident in its current user numbers - will give the company a huge leg-up in any VOIP race.
"The problem with the likes of Skype, BlackBerry Messenger Voice and Apple [Face Time] is that they are viewed in silos. They have a limited user base, whereas WhatsApp has the numbers and is easy to sign up to. WhatsApp will be larger than its competitors. How much larger remains to be seen, but, with the likes of Facebook backing them, they definitely have more potential."
In a Facebook post last week, celebrating the advent of 2015, Koum shared that WhatsApp had reached over 700 million active monthly users. "Additionally, every day our users now send over 30 billion messages," he said, adding that users could expect the firm to "keep building a great product" this year.
This means WhatsApp is bigger than its Facebook-owned counterpart Instagram and micro-blog rival Twitter, which together have less than 600 million active monthly users. This is hefty growth, considering WhatsApp boasted "more than 450 million" active monthly users when it was acquired by Facebook 11 months ago.
Although South African operators have been relatively slow to respond to the imminent VOIP threat, analysts predict WhatsApp's free voice service will force them to cut costs to the bone and find clever ways of replacing already pressurised voice revenue.
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