WhatsApp welcomed today the first billionth active user. WhatsApp in 2009 began with an iOS app and is now available on virtually any mobile platform. Almost two years ago, WhatsApp was acquired by the social network Facebook for an unprecedented high price.
Jan Koum, co-founder of WhatsApp has now brought out statistics of how we have used in seven years are all WhatsApp. Meanwhile, the counter is at 1 billion monthly active users. In addition, we send 42 billion messages daily to each and 1.6 billion photos and 250 million videos. On WhatsApp there are now one billion WhatsApp groups. The 57 engineers employed by WhatsApp have helped ensure that WhatsApp is available in 53 different languages.
In February 2014, WhatsApp was acquired by social networking site Facebook, its biggest buyout till date, for a whopping USD 19 billion. In a post on Facebook, WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum said 42 billion messages were sent, 1.6 billion photos and 250 million videos shared everyday on the platform.
Also, there are one billion groups on WhatsApp, he said.
Previously, WhatsApp has said its service has seen strong uptake, especially across developing nations such as Brazil, India and Russia. "In India, more photos are sent using WhatsApp than in any other country in the world. As one of WhatsApp's largest countries, it's not surprising that the second highest number of groups are here," the company said.
WhatsApp competes with messaging apps like LINE, Viber and Hike in India. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also congratulated Koum and his team.
"WhatsApp's community has more than doubled since joining Facebook. We've added the ability for you to call loved ones far away. We've dropped the subscription fee and made WhatsApp completely free. Next, we're going to work to connect more people around the world and make it easier to communicate with businesses," he said.
Zuckerberg added that there are only a few services that connect more than a billion people and this milestone is an important step towards connecting the entire world.
Recently, WhatsApp had said it will stop charging USD 1 per year subscription fee to go completely free for its users across the world. Also, it will not introduce any third-party ads for monetisation and is going to experiment with new models to stay ad-free, it had added