Instant Messaging Service WhatsApp Now Has 14% of the World's Population

When Mark Zuckerberg bought WhatsApp for a staggering $19 billion in 2014, the CEO of Facebook promised that the messaging service would soon hit the billion mark — turns out he was not wrong at all. It was recently announced that the communications app has now one billion users.

In his Facebook post CEO Jan. Koum said: “One billion users. Couldn’t be more proud of our small team doing so much in just seven years.” Koum shared a chart that showed WhatsApp now has one billion active users, meaning 42 billion messages sent per day. The chart further showed that 1.6 billion photos and 250 million videos are shared daily on WhatsApp, while there are one billion total groups. Also, 53 languages are now supported by WhatsApp.

WhatsApp has grown into one of the most popular communication tools in a short span of time. The credit goes to the WhatsApp team for keeping the messaging app ad-free and also discontinuing the 0.99/year subscription fees. Prior to its acquisition, the communication app’s sales were $10.8 million, majority of which came from the subscription fees. Now with no subscription fees, WhatsApp will have to look for other sources of revenue generation while also keeping it ad-free.

WhatsApp's user base has grown at a rapid pace. At the time of acquisition, it had 450 million active users. In September 2015, WhatsApp’s monthly active users were reported to be 900 million, with one billion active users in sight. And now it has finally achieved the billion users' mark.

Zuckerberg in his Facebook post congratulated the WhatsApp team on reaching the milestone and vowed to connect with more people in future and to make it easier to communicate with businesses. The timing of WhatsApp hitting the one billion mark is just perfect, as it comes only a day after Google’s announcement of Gmail having one billion active users.