Instant messaging mobile app WhatsApp now has over 60 million users in India. From 50 million users in May this year, WhatsApp has added 10 million new users in less than three months.In an exclusive interview to BGR, Vice President of WhatsApp Neeraj Arora said, "India is one of the fastest growing markets."
Earlier this year, CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp Jan Kuom had announced plans to introduce voice calls in the app by the second quarter of the year. Arora told BGR that the project had been delayed but that the company is still working on it.
WhatsApp and other mobile messaging services like WeChat and Viber have been eating into the revenues of Indian mobile networks for whom voice calls and text messages bring in 75% of their revenues. The apps have made it cheaper for users to make calls and send messages using the internet, where their services are free and the user need only pay for the data charges incurred.
Telecom firms like Airtel have been demanding that such apps be regulated and brought under jurisdiction like they are. “I think we need a framework by which these companies are subjected to similar jurisdiction… because that will benefit everybody concerned,” Bharti Airtel Joint MD and CEO (India operations) Gopal Vittal told PTI.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is in the process of planning a regulatory framework for these companies. "Hopefully we will come out with paper on broadband may be by end of next month,” TRAI Chairman Rahul Khullar said at a telecom summit organised by industry chamber ASSOCHAM.
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