{"id":132645,"date":"2015-07-22T09:57:05","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T07:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=132645"},"modified":"2015-07-22T09:58:36","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T07:58:36","slug":"whatsapp-voice-calling-impact-very-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/132645-whatsapp-voice-calling-impact-very-small.html","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp voice calling impact very small"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WhatsApp voice calling was rolled out in <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/smartphones\/122592-whatsapp-voice-calling-invitations-open-again-report.html\">March<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/smartphones\/124726-whatsapp-voice-calling-rolling-out-to-iphones.html\">April 2015<\/a><\/strong>, and many people predicted that mobile voice revenues would plummet as users switched from traditional voice to WhatsApp calling. This has not happened.<\/p>\n<p>Vodacom said the impact of WhatsApp voice calling has been negligible on its voice revenues, with less than 1% of its customer base actively using the service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the moment, the majority of phones on the network aren\u2019t smartphones, so WhatsApp calling does not impact voice services to this group,\u201d said Vodacom\u2019s Richard Boorman.<\/p>\n<p>Customers with smartphones, meanwhile, are cautious about using the service, he said.<\/p>\n<p>While the service is not impacting voice revenues yet, the company is aware that mobile users\u2019 habits are changing.<\/p>\n<p>Vodacom said it is prepared to supply services in whichever way works best for its customers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur focus is on continuing to invest in the network to make sure that we can supply the best possible experience, whether it\u2019s voice or data, that the customer needs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>MTN and Cell C were asked for comment on the impact of WhatsApp on their revenues, but they did not respond by the time of publication.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"related\">More on WhatsApp calling<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/smartphones\/121786-whatsapp-voice-calling-tested.html\">WhatsApp voice calling tested<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/smartphones\/122634-prices-compared-whatsapp-calling-vs-mobile-voice.html\"><strong>Prices compared \u2013 WhatsApp calling vs mobile voice<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/smartphones\/122106-the-data-cost-of-whatsapp-voice-calling-in-sa.html\">The data cost of WhatsApp voice calling in SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The impact of WhatsApp voice calling on mobile voice revenues has been much smaller than predicted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":131328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[355,35,42,1167,41,2594,28177],"class_list":["post-132645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-richard-boorman","tag-vodacom","tag-whatsapp","tag-whatsapp-voice-calling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132687,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132645\/revisions\/132687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}