Jan Koum, Co-founder and Chief Executive
Officer of Whatsapp, the social messaging
service recently acquired by Facebook for US
$19billion, has commended the country for its
innovative approach to using its mobile
application .
Mr. Koum, making his first public appearance at
the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona after
the acquisition by Facebook, was narrating
WhatsApp’s journey since being founded five
years ago.
Citing how useful the application has been to the
over-450 million subscribers around the globe,
Mr. Koum singled out Ghana as a country that is
using the product in a way he and Brian Acton
— the other Co-founder — never envisaged
when they established the application.
According to him, though he had learnt of
several uses of the service from across the
globe, mails he had from Ghana that the
university students are using the WhatsApp
messenger to hold discussions with their
lecturers, and even compare notes among
themselves in a group, left him astounded.
Mr. Koum added that such application of his
messenger, particularly, shows how important
and indispensable the service has been since it
was established.
On the future of the messenger, Mr. Koum said
Whatsapp intends to introduce voice over its
platform by summer as already being executed
by BBM talk, Kakao talk, Viber etc. This means
that with a simple data connection, WhatsApp
users may be able to place phone calls to each
other at minimal cost.
Already, this announcement has triggered
apprehension among some industry analysts
who are wondering how this will impact on
mobile operators’ revenue generation from voice
services.
However, CEO of Millicom International Cellular
S.A., Hans-Holger Albrecht, said operators are
indeed preparing adequately these
developments — and are excited about the fact
that these Gong Jianzhong innovations or OTT
(Over-the-top) players are also increasing data
usage of mobile subscribers, and operators are
aware voice will become free in the long-term.
“So there is a dire need to grow infrastructure
with the world requiring about US$1.5trillion to
meet the upcoming demand of data by 2020
with the introduction of budget (low-cost) US$50
smartphones.
Data from the country’s sector regulator,
National Communications Authority, indicated
that the number of mobile Internet subscribers
reached the 10million mark last year, a figure it
described as “average”.
The data market, which is considered as the
next frontier for network operators, grew by
19.5 percent last year from 8.6 million access
lines in January to 10.3 million at the end of
December — putting the rate of data
penetration at almost 40% in a population of 26
million.
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