WhatsApp group chats handle up to 256 users with new update

WhatsApp for iOS and Android has been blessed with a small update. The company didn't make any formal announcements about them, but with the change comes a higher limit for group chats — namely, instead of being limited to 100 users, group chats can now have up to 256 users. The same upper limit doesn't seem to be available on other platforms yet, but will likely be showing up in the near future.

The new higher group chat limit applies to WhatsApp for Android version 2.12.13, and to WhatsApp for iOS version 2.12.367 and higher. WhatsApp, of course, is available for other mobile platforms too, including Windows Phone and BlackBerry. There's no word or indication if the new feature is coming to either apps, though it seems likely.

This upper limit will make the chatting service more attractive to businesses and other large organizations that need to have a large number of people in a collective chat, such as a small business' office or a larger company's various divisions. This follows the company's elimination of the seldom enforced $1 annual fee.

WhatsApp is a very popular chatting service that just recently announced that it has one billion active monthly users, a figure reserved for only the top of all services. In comparison, Google announced the same day that it has hit the billion user mark with Gmail.

SOURCE: NDTV