Popular mobile messaging service WhatsApp crossed another major milestone recently. The company CEO announced on Twitter that WhatsApp is now service over 600 million monthly active users.
The CEO was quick to point out that it’s active users, that is, people actually using the service everyday, and not just registered users, which would be a bigger number but a lot of those people won’t actually be using the service.
This makes the milestone all the more impressive and shows once again just how popular WhatsApp is. The service may not be popular in America but in the rest of the world, and especially in developing markets, WhatsApp has an unwavering fan following, especially since the service is available on practically every mobile platform, including low-end feature phones. For example, 60 million of WhatsApp’s current active users are from India.
The company was recently acquired by Facebook for $19 billion, although it has remained unchanged and operated independently despite that.
WhatsApp is clearly leading the pack followed by Tencent’s WeChat with 438 million active users, and Viber with 100 million active users. Koum also takes a dig at other messaging services who do not reveal the number of monthly active users, saying, “Yes, active and registered are very different types of numbers.”
Going forward, WhatsApp is also looking at voice calling service, but the project seems to have run into delays. The company is still working on the project, but there is no timeframe for a launch.
June 2009 – WhatsApp was incepted by two of former Yahoo employees, Brian Acton and Jan Koum, to provide an alternative of SMS services to users. The messenger app allowed users to send unlimited messages over Internet connection without needing the regular top up credits. Most importantly, the service was launched at a nominal one-time payment of $0.99.
The CEO was quick to point out that it’s active users, that is, people actually using the service everyday, and not just registered users, which would be a bigger number but a lot of those people won’t actually be using the service.
This makes the milestone all the more impressive and shows once again just how popular WhatsApp is. The service may not be popular in America but in the rest of the world, and especially in developing markets, WhatsApp has an unwavering fan following, especially since the service is available on practically every mobile platform, including low-end feature phones. For example, 60 million of WhatsApp’s current active users are from India.
The company was recently acquired by Facebook for $19 billion, although it has remained unchanged and operated independently despite that.
WhatsApp is clearly leading the pack followed by Tencent’s WeChat with 438 million active users, and Viber with 100 million active users. Koum also takes a dig at other messaging services who do not reveal the number of monthly active users, saying, “Yes, active and registered are very different types of numbers.”
Going forward, WhatsApp is also looking at voice calling service, but the project seems to have run into delays. The company is still working on the project, but there is no timeframe for a launch.
June 2009 – WhatsApp was incepted by two of former Yahoo employees, Brian Acton and Jan Koum, to provide an alternative of SMS services to users. The messenger app allowed users to send unlimited messages over Internet connection without needing the regular top up credits. Most importantly, the service was launched at a nominal one-time payment of $0.99.
No comments:
Post a Comment