New information suggests WhatsApp voice calling feature is coming soon

Telecom companies may not exactly be thrilled with it, but voice calling is coming WhatsApp whether they like it or not. As announced by co-founder Jan Koum during the Mobile World Congress, the cross-platform messaging app is set to receive voice-calling ability later this year.

It looks like that could be sooner than we expected at first. A new translation request for those who volunteer to translate the app’s interface in Hindi, shows new dialogs and notifications which require a Hindi translation.

Discovered by Windows Phone Central , the translation page shows the Hindi options for notifying users of incoming and outgoing calls, as well as the hanging up. This indicates that the feature may be ready for a rollout since translation is usually done after most of the interface and feature development is done. We have already seen leaks of what the main UI could look like .

The WhatsApp voice calling feature is set to hit Android and iOS devices at first. There’s no word on whether the Facebook-owned app will bring it to other platforms.

WhatsApp has been revamping its offering in the past few days thanks to the increase in user base and brand awareness since the massive $19 billion takeover by Facebook . Earlier this year, Android users got new privacy settings as well as some additional features.

While there are plenty of contenders for the messaging crown, none have as wide a cross-platform base as WhatsApp, which will be crucial as competition looks to new features to attract users. WhatsApp may not have stickers or random chat like some of its rivals, but the voice-calling feature could end up cementing its dominance in the space.