This is another historical moment for Mark Zuckerberg, who spearheaded the jaw-dropping $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp two years ago. The CEO of Facebook’s prophecy that WhatsApp will grow to become one of the world’s most-used communication platforms seems to be absolutely right. The surprising growth of this mobile messaging device owned by Facebook crosses one billion platforms in its usage. Even though WhatsApp doesn’t make any money, it is certainly popular, obviously, more than Facebook Messenger which has now 800 million users.
The team led by co-founder and CEO Jan Koum has multiplied the users especially much credit should be given to its ad-free stance and minimal design. Before Facebook taken over WhatsApp, it had 450 million monthly active users. Also regulatory filings details that WhatsApp’s annual sales before the Facebook acquisition were only $10.8 million, of which a vast amount received by charging some users $0.99 a year for using. It was said last month Facebook would remove the funding while WhatsApp would remain the same as an ad-free service.
Zuckerberg reiterates that WhatsApp’s new focus is on making money through business partnerships. Discussions are underway regarding monetizing WhatsApp by focusing on businesses where it can be used to communicate with customers. Zuckerberg says they are going to work to connect more people around the world and make it easier to communicate with businesses. 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, he adds.
However, this achievement of WhatsApp happens to coincide with that of another communication tech milestone. Google also declares that its mail service Gmail also has reached one billion targets in its usage. Though the metrics for estimating activities on an email service and a mobile app tend to be dissimilar, it’s worth a lot more for Jan Koum and his crew.
