Facebook acquired the popular messaging service WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion because of its popularity and growing user base, and the social networking giant was not wrong. WhatsApp’s popularity is still increasing with new users coming aboard at a fast pace.
Facebook still the biggest
In August, there were 600 million users of the app per month, but that number has gone up to 700 million each month. WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum, in a post on Facebook, noted that every day 30 billion messages are sent by WhatsApp users. The mobile messaging app crossed the 500 million user threshold back in April. The app, which enables its users to send text messages without incurring any costs, is extremely popular among younger users.
“We’re grateful that so many of you are using WhatsApp to stay in touch with your friends and family, business colleagues and classmates,” Koum wrote, and vowed to continue improving the app.
With 700 million monthly users, WhatsApp is among the biggest social networking platforms of the world, and is ahead of Twitter with 284 million users, and is bigger than Instagram with 300 million users last month. However, the biggest of all is Facebook with over 1.3 billion users logging in each month. In September, BBM was reported to have 91 million monthly active users, while the China-based service WeChat enjoyed 468 million monthly active users, according to November tracking data.
Still far from the 1 billion target
Facebook acquired WhatsApp in one of the largest deals in Silicon Valley history, and at the time many were skeptical about the company’s move. However, the latest data regarding the number of users of WhatsApp will help calm investors’ fears.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg feels that the acquisitions and businesses added over the last few years will be “meaningful” if they are able to hit the mark of 1 billion users. Last year, Zuckerberg made a statement saying, “Over a five-year time frame we have a number of services which we think are well on their way to reaching 1 billion people. WhatsApp, Instagram and search are a number of them.” He also noted that if they succeed in reaching the mark then all the acquisitions will become “meaningful businesses in their own right.”
