{"id":999048,"date":"2026-03-23T10:37:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T05:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/?p=999048"},"modified":"2026-03-23T12:53:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T07:23:28","slug":"usernames-set-to-enter-whatsapp-chat-global-rollout-likely-in-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/2026\/03\/23\/usernames-set-to-enter-whatsapp-chat-global-rollout-likely-in-june\/","title":{"rendered":"Usernames set to enter WhatsApp chat; global rollout likely in June"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mumbai: WhatsApp is gearing up for its biggest platform overhaul with transition from phone numbers to usernames and unique IDs, allowing users to send messages and make voice or video calls without sharing their phone numbers, ET has learnt. The platform is expected to roll out usernames by June 2026 globally, and both consumers as well as businesses will be able to reserve unique handles, such as \u2018HDFC Bank\u2019 or \u2018Ben Clark\u2019, similar to platforms like Instagram, people aware of the development said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mumbai: WhatsApp is gearing up for its biggest platform overhaul with transition from phone numbers to usernames and unique IDs, allowing users to send messages and make voice or video calls without sharing their phone numbers, ET has learnt. The platform is expected to roll out usernames by June 2026 globally, and both consumers as well as businesses will be able to reserve unique handles, such as \u2018HDFC Bank\u2019 or \u2018Ben Clark\u2019, similar to platforms like Instagram, people aware of the development said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,60,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-999048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-telecom-the-economic-times","category-the-economic-times"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=999048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=999048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=999048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=999048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}