Announcing the news on his Facebook page Mark Zuckerberg said: “One billion people now use WhatsApp”.
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The Facebook-owned messaging tool has fast outstripped its rivals to become the go-to service for group texting and calling.
The app has proved controversial in some countries where fears remain over secure messaging, with Brazil trying but failing to ban the service in December 2015.
“As of today, one billion people are using WhatsApp”.
How many of you use WhatsApp regularly? WhatsApp added that presently around 42 billion messages are sent every day, while 1.6 billion photos and 250 million videos are also shared daily.
In February 2014, WhatsApp was acquired by social networking site Facebook, its biggest buyout till date, for a whopping $19 billion (nearly Rs 1.3 lakh crore).
It’s not yet clear if that announcement significantly accelerated the app’s progress towards reaching a billion users, but the company says it’s focused on continuing to “improve WhatsApp’s speed, reliability, security and simplicity” to fuel further growth.
And a post on the official WhatsApp confrimed the news stating: “We’re happy to announce that WhatsApp will no longer charge subscription fees”.
WhatsApp posted an update on its blog celebrating the 1 billion milestone.
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Despite these impressive user numbers, WhatsApp’s capability to generate revenue is once again in question after the company scrapped the $0.99 fee, which at the time of the company’s acquisition by Menlo Park-based Facebook, Inc. totaled $10.2 million annually, according to Bloomberg.
