Yesterday, WhatsApp announced that it has started rolling out group voice and video calling facility to its platform for both iOS and Android users. The rollout of group voice and video calling makes WhatsApp among the very few messaging platforms out there to support this feature across platforms.
The rollout has also been surprisingly very quick from the company as most WhatsApp users have already got the option to initiate a group voice or video call on their device. If you are wondering how to make a group video or voice call on WhatsApp on your iPhone, follow the steps below.
Do note that at maximum, you can have 8 participants in a single group voice or video call on WhatsApp. Just like messages, group voice and video calling in WhatsApp are also end-to-end encrypted. For comparison, FaceTime Group video calling supports up to 32 participants.
How to Make a Group Voice Call in WhatsApp
Step 1: Open WhatsApp on your iPhone and proceed to head over to the contact with whom you’d like to do a voice call.
Step 2: On the top-right corner, tap the voice call button to initiate the call.
Step 3: Once the caller has picked up your call, tap the ‘+’ shortcut on the top-right corner of the display to add another participant to the call.
When you have added 8 people in the group voice call, which is the maximum number of people you can have in a group voice call in WhatsApp then the “+” icon will be greyed out, so you can’t add any more people.
How to Make a Group Video Call in WhatsApp
Step 1: Similar to a voice call, you open WhatsApp and open the chatbox with a contact whom you’d like to do a video call. You will find the video call shortcut on the top-right corner.
Step 2: Once you are in a video call with one participant, tap the ‘+’ button, and proceed to select the third participant of the video call. In a similar way, you can add a fourth participant to your video call as well.
When you have added 8 people in the group video call, which is the maximum number of people you can have in a group video call in WhatsApp then the “+” icon will be greyed out, so you can’t add any more people to the video call.
If you want to make a group video call with more than 8 people then you can use the following options:
- FaceTime allows up to 32 users though it is limited to iOS.
- Zoom, the most popular app for group video calls, allows up to 100 users, and you can buy an add-on for larger meetings.
- Facebook’s Messenger Rooms and Skype allow up to 50 users.
WhatsApp is incredibly popular in Asian countries like India and the addition of group voice and video calling to the platform is going to be extremely popular among users of the app in these countries. WhatsApp has also ensured here that its group video/voice calling works properly on slow internet connection without much of an issue which is always an added bonus.
Update:
On August 27, 2020, WhatsApp increased the limit to 8 people for group video calls.
This post was last updated on April 28, 2020.
