Facebook-owned WhatsApp, one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, has reached a new level of popularity, a report said.
WhatsApp, with its service that allows users from all over the world to communicate with each other using text messages that do not come with carrier charges, revealed that it has reached the milestone of having 700 million active monthly users. This represents rapid growth for the company, which reported that it only had 600 million active monthly users back in August of last year, Tech Times said.
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WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum revealed the company’s milestone through a post on Facebook, adding that users are collectively sending out 30 billion messages daily, the report said.
With the milestone, WhatsApp has become one of the biggest social networks in the world, bigger than the 284 million active monthly users of Twitter and the 300 million active monthly users of Instagram, Tech Times said.
Parent company Facebook, however, still holds the top spot among all social networks, with active monthly users reaching as high as 1.3 billion.
“We’re grateful that so many of you are using WhatsApp to stay in touch with your friends and family, business colleagues and classmates, ” wrote Koum in his Facebook post.
WhatsApp’s achievement of this milestone will dampen the fears of investors regarding the acquisition strategies of Facebook, as the company’s $19 billion purchase of WhatsApp is one of the biggest deals in the history of Silicon Valley, the report said.
A spokesman for WhatsApp, however, declined to reveal how many of the 700 million active monthly users are paying users, or if the company’s growth has exceeded the expectations of Facebook, Tech Times said.
WhatsApp, which has been around since 2009, is considered a world leader in terms of free instant messaging. However, people should know that after using the app for a year as a freeware they will have to pay $0.99 annually, technology and gaming website The Fuse Joplin said.
Unlike some of its competitors including Viber, Skype and Tango, WhatsApp has no official PC version. This means that it is impossible to install this app on a PC without having to make a runtime environment that is conducive to it, the report said.
This year, WhatsApp is expected to launch a voice calling feature and PC version to follow suit. However, as it is with many other popular apps, this is still just a rumor as CEO Koum is adamant that the app will not extend its services to the PC market, the website said
