To keep up with the competition in the field of messaging apps, Telegram announced a major update that introduces several new features–the big one being group video calls.

A feature that was promised last year, Telegram finally fulfilled that by making group video calls possible through its app. For its initial rollout, only the first 30 people can join the group video calls, though Telegram promises that they will increase that limit soon.

Aside from the much-awaited feature, Telegram enhances the functionality of its platform further by adding useful features like screen sharing and noise suppression. The former is useful for collaborations and online classes, while the latter aims to improve overall audio quality to ensure everyone in the call can be heard properly. Telegram also added a toggle for noise suppression, explaining that there are times that “munching has meaning”.

Considering that a number of people prefer using tablets or desktop app, Telegram also optimized its app to make use of the added screen estate. If you are using a tablet or prefer the desktop app, there is now a side panel and a split-screen view.

The desktop app gets additional tweaks like voice chats opening on a separate window, selective screen sharing, and automatic pinning of shared screens–all of them very useful for collaboration work.

With these added features, Telegram hopes to catch up against its rivals in the messaging app space. Its closest rival WhatsApp has over 2 billion users globally as of February 2021, and already offers group video and audio calls since 2018.