Musk to rival Whatsapp, Telegram with launch of voice, video on X

 

Voice and video calls will soon be available for use on the microblogging site X (formerly known as Twitter).

The features, when made available, will put X in direct competition with social media applications like WhatsApp, Telegram, and others that provide the same services, according to X owner Elon Musk, who made the announcement yesterday.

For customers to make calls on X, Musk claimed that they wouldn’t require phone numbers. He said that the capabilities would be compatible with iOS, Android, Mac, and PC as well as other operating systems, allowing customers to place calls on both their laptops and mobile devices.

Musk said: “Video & audio calls coming to X: Works on iOS, Android, Mac and PC, no phone number needed. X is the effective global address book that set of factors is unique.”

The rivalry between Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook and Meta, who recently released the Twitter-like programme Threads, is anticipated to get deeper as a result of this development.

After taking over Twitter in October of last year, Musk has made a lot of changes to the service, including changing the blue tick mark to a feature that requires a subscription, introducing community notes, monetizing content, and changing the company’s name to X recently, among other things.

While data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) indicated that there would be 159 million Internet users in Nigeria by the end of 2023, of which 158 million would access the web via GSM, 16,897 through fixed wired infrastructure, 208,612 through Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and 328,657 through Voice over Internet Protocol.

Africa Facts Zone reported that X (Twitter) has 9.3 million users in South Africa. Egypt came in second place with 5.15 million users, followed by Nigeria’s 3.05 million users.

Morocco came fourth with 2.85 million X users; Kenya was fifth as of January with 1.35 million customers and Tanzania was sixth with 891,500 users.