WhatsApp Grows to 700m Monthly Users

WhatsappOver-the-top messaging app WhatsApp has reached 700m monthly users, growing by 100m users in less than six months and striding ahead of Facebook Messenger in terms of global popularity.

The messaging service, acquired by Facebook for $22bn (£14.6bn), has become an alternative to SMS messaging for many users around the world, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear he has even bigger plans for the app.

In previous earnings calls with investors, Zuckerberg has said that he expects the WhatsApp unit to contribute to the companys profits, but does not want to push monetisation until it reaches roughly a billion monthly users.

Given the apps rate of growth, the billion user milestone may not be far away, but until then, the company is a considerable weight on Facebooks accounts, having made a loss of around $230m in H1 2014, and brought in only around $15m in revenue.

Jan Koum, CEO of WhatsApp, said he was “humbled and excited” by the figures, which also revealed that around 30bn messages are sent daily using the app, with the average user sending 43 messages a day.