New Delhi, Oct. 4 -- WhatsApp is reportedly preparing to introduce a long-anticipated update that will allow users to create usernames, moving away from its long-standing reliance on phone numbers. Since its launch in 2009, the Meta-owned messaging platform has only enabled registration and contact discovery through mobile numbers, a system that has increasingly looked dated compared with competitors such as Telegram, which has offered usernames for years.

The upcoming feature has been spotted in recent test builds of the app, where references to usernames and their rules were uncovered. According to WABetaInfo, usernames must contain at least one letter and can only include lowercase letters, numbers, periods, and underscores. Attempts ...