WhatsApp breaks user record on New Year's Eve
Thanks to the global pandemic and resulting lockdown conditions at the turn of the year, Facebook was able to set a new record on WhatsApp. The social media giant's other apps were also popular once again.
As Facebook wrote in a recent statement, it was able to count more than 1.4 billion video and voice calls on WhatsApp worldwide on December 31st, 2020. This is more than ever before on a single day, and represents an increase of more than 50 per cent compared to the same day a year earlier, according to the company.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was not only in Europe that citizens were encouraged to welcome the new year in extremely small circles. In order to still stay in touch with family and friends, many users apparently resorted to WhatsApp or one of Facebook's other social media apps.
WhatsApp, Messenger, and live streams: Facebook gives us the figures
In addition to the figures for WhatsApp, the company was also able to measure new records for Facebook Messenger usage. Thus, on New Year's Eve 2020 in the United States, more group videos with at least three people were carried out than ever before. Facebook did not give us the exact figures here, however, there were reportedly almost twice as many group videos taking place as on an average day.
But it wasn't just WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger that were extremely popular apps on December 31st last year. In addition to private communication tools, many users also resorted to live functions on Facebook and Instagram. Worldwide, the company counted more than 55 million live streams on New Year's Eve.
Facebook sets new records
As Caitlin Banford, Technical Program Manager at Facebook, is quoted as saying in the report, new records could be seen in the traffic used by the apps right from the start of the pandemic. In March 2020, this toppled the previous records, which until then were typically set on New Year's Eve.
This ensured, among other things, that Facebook's technicians had to take care of the infrastructure. The previous months were thus a good preparation for the enormous rush at the recent turn of the year.
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