While we in South Africa had a 9PM curfew over the New Year period due to increased restrictions to curb the spread of the worldwide pandemic, we weren’t alone. Quarantines and lockdowns around the world have forced millions to stay at home and travel less to friends and family. This meant more people than ever celebrated with each other over the internet. WhatsApp’s numbers clearly reflect this trend, as it smashed all records over the holiday period.
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WhatsApp set the record for number of voice and video calls on the last day of the challenging year that was 2020. It had over 1.4 billion video and voice calls on December 31st, the most ever in a single day on any platform. It was more than 50 percent higher than New Year’s Eve 2019 and it was even higher than the massive spike it saw back in March as the pandemic set in and countries started to lock down.
Not only WhatsApp had a massive usage increase, with Facebook’s other platforms also performing well. Facebook Messenger also had its largest ever single day, with almost twice as many calls it usually has on an average day. The company also said that Facebook Live and Instagram Live had 55 million broadcasts worldwide.
Facebook is unlikely to see these numbers again for quite some time. Mass vaccinations will start to roll out soon, which means in-person celebrations will become more common again and travel restrictions will start to lift.
The company said that it had to make “unprecedented efficiency improvements” and make big investments to bolster its infrastructure to handle the load. The peak in usage was expected, and Facebook had several teams standing by to react if anything went wrong. The internet has proven to be an extremely important tool in 2020, with the industry stepping up to help communities in need and connect people to their loved ones.
