According to new statistics, WhatsApp has officially reached 800 million active users, a milestone which proves its popularity as in the world of messaging apps.
WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum commented on Facebook on Friday to say that the messaging app has passed the 800 million active user mark this month. Facebook had bought WhatsApp in 2014 for a reasonable $22 billion, and given the time of Koum’s statement, this is suggesting the app has added more than 100 million active users every four months since August 2014. WhatsApp had 600 million users at that time, while in January 2015, the messaging app announced its 700 million user.
WhatsApp’s popularity has increased significantly over the past few months, as it is now the most popular enterprise on the messaging apps market, including Facebook’s very own Messenger. As WhatsApp allows users to send text messages trough the app, it has become a cheap and viable alternative to traditional texting. It is also a choice when compared to traditional voice calls, because WhatsApp now allows its users to receive calls on the app itself.
It is possible that WhatsApp may soon hit another milestone: one billion users. The step is not at all inconceivable, and if it will happen, as it is expected, that would turn WhatsApp into a faster-growing application than its own parent company. The messaging app is also more popular than Twitter, which announced 288 million active users per month in February, but also than Instagram, which released a statement in December in which it says it has 300 million active users.
Facebook needed around eight years to reach one billion, WhatsApp will get there more rapidly. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long said that WhatsApp will only turn into a big player in its parent company once that one billion milestone is crossed.
“What I’d say around messaging is we’re pretty early in that cycle. We are about where Facebook was in around 2006 or 2007, where, at that point, Facebook is really just a consumer product. There were no businesses in the ecosystem,” said Mark Zuckerberg recently.
WhatsApp has released an update to its Android app that offers clients the possibility to backup their conversations to Google Drive, a service that had been long demanded by users.
Image Source: I Know Today
Melissa Gansler
