WhatsApp users worldwide made more than 1,4 billion voice and video calls on New Year's Eve, setting a new record for the number of calls made on WhatsApp in one day. Facebook itself boasted about it, under which the globally popular chat application belongs.
The rate of use of all Facebook social platforms always skyrockets on the last day of the year, but this time the coronavirus pandemic contributed to breaking previous records. According to the social giant, the number of calls made through WhatsApp increased by more than 50% year-on-year, and its other platforms also saw large increases.
New Year's Eve also saw the most group calls via Messenger, specifically in the US – over three million, which is almost double the service's daily average. The most used augmented reality effect for US users on Messenger was an effect called 2020 Fireworks.
Live broadcasts also showed a significant year-on-year increase – over 55 million users made them via Facebook and Instagram. Facebook added that the platforms Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp saw an increase in usage throughout last year, but did not give specific numbers in this case.
WhatsApp is currently the most popular social platform in the world – over 2 billion people use it every month (the second is Messenger with 1,3 billion users).
