WhatsApp releases voice-calling feature for All Android users

After several flip-flops, WhatsApp has finally released the voice-calling feature for all Android users. Users would need to download version 2.11.528 from the Play Store or version 2.11.531 from the WhatsApp website.

AndroidPolice said it was possible to activate voice-calling by receiving a call from someone who had voice calling already activated.

After getting the call, users would need to close and then reopen the app. Subsequently users would get to see three tabs namely Calls, Chats and Contacts instead of most recent chats. The call tab showed incoming, outgoing and missed calls at the precise times.

Meanwhile, though many questioned whether Facebook had paid too much to acquire WhatsApp last year, the mobile messaging app's already-formidable numbers continued to impress over 12 months on.

Indeed, WhatsApp for Android could now boast of a whopping 1 billion downloads on Android alone, which made it only the second non-Google app to achieve the milestone. Google Play publishes installation ranges for each app, and in WhatsApp's case this now showed as being between 1 billion and 5 billion downloads.

This did not, however mean that 1 billion people on Android were actively using the app - back in January, WhatsApp revealed it had 700 million monthly active users (MAU) across iOS and Android, 70 per cent of whom were active each and every day.

Two months on, that MAU figure may well have increased, but it was difficult to say exactly how many of the 1 billion-plus Android installs were  active users.

While Google calculates app downloads on a per-account basis rather than per device, it does not consider those who had uninstalled the app.

Nonetheless, very few apps had received such a high number of downloads - while Gmail, Google Maps, and YouTube had managed it, Facebook emerged as the first non-Google service to meet that milestone last year. Now with WhatsApp, Facebook had two applications with at least 1 billion Android installations each.

While the $22-billion WhatsApp acquisition might seem high, Facebook knew the potential of the mobile messaging app last year.

The social network was, in a way future-proofing itself and ensuring its relevance as a company by acquiring WhatsApp, at a time when there were several other means of instant communications for users, say commentators.