The world’s most popular mobile messaging service, WhatsApp which launched back in 2009 and has now reached over 700 million active monthly users across the globe. WhatsApp’s co-founder Jan Koum made the announcement on his Facebook page.
The company was acquired by Facebook for $19 billion in February 2014. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, described WhatsApp as an “incredibly valuable” service that was well on its way to connecting 1 billion people around the world.
The cross-platform smartphone app service hit 500 million users back in April 2014 and then surpassed 600 million in late August 2014. Many have now predicted the app will top Facebook’s 1 billion faster than they did back in October 2012.
GWI Social Apps
With the vast growth of engagement in social/messaging apps, WhatsApp is now one of the world’s largest social networks making it bigger than Twitter’s 284 million and the photo-sharing service Instagram which has 300 million users. Facebook still remains the leader with 1.3 billion users signing in each month.
Source: WhatsApp Growth by BI Intelligence
Kuom has promised to improve the app with it set to add voice calls for the first time in a bid to take on Skype and other messaging apps.
As the popularity of the social/messaging app grows, what could be next for WhatsApp? Last year Facebook revealed WhatsApp lost around $230 million in the first half of the year. Could this mean users pay more for the app after the first initial year or could we see pushed sponsored ads?
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