Facebook-owned OTT messaging platform WhatsApp has announced that its voice calling feature is seeing 100m calls placed a day, as millions of consumers embrace the service for more than just text messaging.

The voice call functionality was first released as an invite-only feature for testing, then opened up to all consumers in March 2015. Since then, WhatsApp has done little to promote or update the feature, but that doesnt seem to have stopped millions from adopting it.

“Were humbled that so many people have found this feature useful, and were committed to making it even better in the months to come,” said a WhatsApp spokesperson in a blog post announcing the milestone. “Its a great way to stay in touch, especially when connecting with people in other countries, or when messages alone wont do.”

100m calls a day equates to over 1,100 calls every second, giving some idea of the popularity of the service. WhatsApp reached another milestone earlier this year in February, when it surpassed 1bn monthly active users.

The Facebook-owned platform was acquired in 2014 for $22bn (£14.8bn) but Facebook has so far not taken many actions to monetise the service. Mark Zuckerberg was quoted as saying he wanted to wait until the messenger hit 1bn monthly active users, but even in the four months since thats happened, weve seen little in the way of announcements or developments.

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