Facebook-owned instant messaging application WhatsApp has recorded a 50 percent increase in its single day calls on New Year’s Eve 2020.
Facebook in its statement said, “More than 1.4 billion voice and video calls were made on New Year’s Eve 2020 globally, the most ever call in a single day on WhatsApp.”
“WhatsApp calling increased over 50% compared to the same day last year,” the company said.
Speaking on the rise on the platform, Caitlin Banford, technical program manager at Facebook, said, “Before COVID-19, New Year’s Eve generated Facebook’s biggest spikes in messaging, photo uploads, and social sharing at midnight across the world. However, in March 2020, the early days of the pandemic produced traffic spikes that would dwarf New Year’s Eve several times over, and it lasted for months.”
“Behind the scenes, Facebook Engineering came together to drive unprecedented efficiency improvements and make our infrastructure more resilient. This work includes load testing, disaster recovery testing, and shuffling capacity. This year, New Year’s Eve looked a lot different, and we had engineering teams across Facebook’s apps, ready to support any issue, so the world could ring in 2021,” Caitlin added.