New Year's Eve celebrations are very much different compared to previous years, with apps like WhatsApp helping the socially-distant festivities, allowing the service to hit new call records.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought many changes, not only in people's lives but also in the manner by which everyone celebrates an event like the New Year. Recently, many welcomed 2021 in the safe confines of their homes. While there were some sporadic gatherings in New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, they did not reach even a fraction of the crowd that gathered there last year. In many homes across the country, dwellers opted for a quieter celebration along with their immediate family. The gatherings, however, were not less meaningful at all, as digital services like WhatsApp helped everyone welcome the New Year. This resulted in the service hitting new call records in the socially distant celebrations.
Facebook and WhatsApp users set new records on an extremely socially-distant New Year's Eve, with the highest number of voice and video calls made on a single day. https://t.co/HVOgobS0Hb pic.twitter.com/ETVUQyRLFm — primo4k (@primo4k) January 3, 2021
Reports indicate that many people celebrated their New Year's Eve with a lot of common sense and adherence to safety protocols, although this did not stop most of them from having fun. With the help of services like WhatsApp, families welcomed 2021 with relatives living in another city or another state. As a result, WhatsApp hit new call records in the new and socially distant festivities. According to a Facebook report, the social network's WhatsApp platform shattered previous call records and established a new one over the holiday. Facebook revealed that the service catered to over 1.4 billion videos and voice calls around the world during that time.
Even at the outset of the COVID-19 outbreak in the US around March of last year, Facebook already reported an increase in demand for its services. Many people who suddenly found themselves working from home and avoiding people, including their family and friends, fueled the demand for the social network platform's services. Facebook said that since March of 2020, the volume of calls and messaging increased by more than 100%, prompting the company to double its efforts to handle the increase in traffic. This further increased before and during the holidays, culminating in many services like WhatsApp hitting new call records as it helped families usher in 2021 in a socially distant New Year's Eve celebration.
In the last update of Facebook for 2020, the social network giant revealed that WhatsApp shattered previous records as it hit new call records in a socially distant New Year's Eve celebrations as it registers the most calls ever made using the service in a single day. Facebook said that the service experienced over a 50% increase as compared to New Year's Eve in 2019. Messenger also hit a new record with the most video calls made in the US. Messenger's augmented reality effects, such as '2020 Fireworks,' made it more fun for people who used them. The social media giant also recorded over 55 million live sessions on both Facebook and Instagram as people broadcast their celebrations on the last day of 2020.
