Competition is harsh. Even for WhatsApp, the largest messaging app in terms of number of users.
Owned by Meta, the rebranded Facebook, WhatsApp is by far the most popular. But others are catching up pretty fast.
Many of them are competitors that benefit from the fact that WhatsApp is owned by an invasive tech titan, and also because WhatsApp lacks some features here and there.
While Meta has introduced more and more features a long the way, there are still some features that competitors have that WhatsApp lacked.
And this time, WhatsApp is playing a bit of a catch up.
For example, WhatsApp has introduced a way to send and receive files that are as huge as 2GB, protected by end-to-end encryption. This is an immense increase from the previous limit of 100MB.
Next, is the ability to have group chats with up to 512 members, up from the previous number of 256. This, again, is a huge increase.
This should make it better compete with others in the market, especially Telegram.
Read: With Massive Exodus To Signal And Telegram, WhatsApp Tries To Explain Itself
WhatsApp claimed in a blog post that the features should "make it easier" for its app to facilitate internal conversations within small business groups, school groups, and community organizations.
"We recommend using Wi-Fi for larger files and we'll display a counter while uploading or downloading to let you know how long your transfer will take," the company added.
But most notably, WhatsApp is introducing 'Reactions'.
"Reactions are fun, fast, and they reduce overload in groups too. We'll continue improving them be adding an even broader range of expressions in the future," the company said.
"Building private, safe, and secure communities takes work and we think this series of improvements will help people and groups stay close to one another."
The Meta-owned company has been testing the feature for over three years.
Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement on Facebook. Mr Zuckerberg also listed the six emojis that would be part of WhatsApp reactions.
"Reactions on WhatsApp start rolling out today," he said in a post.
“We're including [hands joined emoji] to help spread thanks and appreciation. More expressions coming soon," he added.
This announcement is in line with what WhatsApp said earlier about 'Communities'.
In a blog post, WhatsApp said at the time that it wanted to "reduce overload in larger chats."
"While other apps are building chats for hundreds of thousands of people, we’re choosing to focus on supporting the groups that are part of our daily lives."
