1.4 billion Whatsapp voice and video calls were made on New Year eve, setting a new record

On New year’s eve, WhatsApp users made a new world record. Around 1.4 billion video and voice calls were made from WhatsApp on 1 Jan, the most calls ever made from a platform in a single day said Facebook, who bought WhatsApp in 2014.

Due to restrictions and lockdown in a different part of the world due to COVID-19, meeting and greeting closed ones was tough and people preferred to connect virtually which led to a 50% increase in the number of WhatsApp calls made on New year eve.

“Before Covid-19, New Year’s Eve generated Facebook’s biggest spikes in messaging, photo uploads, and social sharing at midnight across the world. However, in March 2020, the early days of the pandemic produced traffic spikes that would dwarf New Year’s Eve several times over — and it lasted for months,” Caitlin Banford, Technical Programme Manager at Facebook said.

“This year, New Year’s Eve looked a lot different, and we had engineering teams across Facebook’s apps, ready to support any issue, so the world could ring in 2021……
People celebrated with effects in Messenger, and the top AR (augmented reality) effect in the US was “2020 Fireworks” she added.