WhatsApp set a record for the number of users on December 31

A record number of users decided to use the WhatsApp messenger on New Year's Eve. The surge in activity is associated with New Year's greetings to friends and family because due to restrictions, many were unable to congratulate them live. For example, in Britain, it was only allowed to celebrate holidays with the family.

More than 1.4 billion video and voice calls took place on New Year's Eve - the largest number in a single day. December 31 is historically the busiest night for the messenger, this year the traffic grew by 50% compared to last year.

It was a big day for Facebook Messenger as well, which had almost double the number of group video calls compared to the daily average. Facebook and Instagram have hosted 55 million live streams worldwide.

This growth shows that people have quickly adapted to the new circumstances of 2020.