All about Pakistan's own desi WhatsApp alternative - Beep Pakistan

The Pakistani government has launched its own alternative to the popular instant messaging application, WhatsApp. Developed by Pakistan's IT ministry and National Information Technology Board (NITB), the app has been named as Beep Pakistan. According to reports, the Pakistan government started working on the app in 2020.

The Made in Pakistan app is hailed as a significant step towards digital autonomy as it will store all the users data in Pakistan itself.

“We can now proudly say Pakistan has a WhatsApp alternative. We have been a bit late … but it is better to be late than never," Pakistan’s IT minister Aminul Haque said during its launch earlier this month.


Phase wise roll out
The Pakistani government plans to release the app in three phases. In the first phase, the Made in Pakistan app will initially be available to only government officials, followed by a public rollout in the third and final phase.

According to the Pakistani government, the app is expected to be made available for the public later this year. It will be listed on Google Play store for download by the general public.

Features of Beep Pakistan
As per reports, Beep Pakistan has support for audio and video calls. For privacy and security, the app promises end to end encryption.

The Beep Pakistan app will also enable users to share documents with captions. Of course, it has instant messaging capabilities.

Beep Pakistan will store all user data in Pakistan itself, thereby eliminating the risk of audio and video leaks.''

It has a conferencing feature as well like that of Zoom.

Pakistan is not the only country to have local messaging application like WhatsApp. China's WeChat is one of the prominent WhatsApp alternative which is available in many countries as well. South Korea has KaKaoTalk while Vietnam has Zalo, and Turkey has BiP.