WhatsApp Joins The 1 Billion User Club

Mobile messaging app WhatsApp, has reached the one billion user milestone, with 42 billion messages being exchanged daily, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday.

The Facebook-owned company also added 100 million users in the last five months, with 1.6 billion photos and 250 million videos shared daily in 53 languages.

“One billion people now use WhatsApp. There are only a few services that connect more than a billion people. This milestone is an important step towards connecting the entire world,” Zuckerberg posted on Facebook.

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“WhatsApp’s community has more than doubled since joining Facebook. We’ve added the ability for you to call loved ones far away. We’ve dropped the subscription fee and made WhatsApp completely free.

“Next, we’re going to work to connect more people around the world and make it easier to communicate with businesses.”

“As of today, one billion people are using WhatsApp. That’s nearly one in seven people on Earth who use WhatsApp each month to stay in touch with their loved ones, their friends and their family,” WhatsApp said in a blogpost.

Facebook acquired the mobile messaging app in 2014, in a deal worth $19bn, its biggest buyout till date, and after two years it has grown to become one of the most widely used communication platforms in the world.

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For WhatsApp, it still isn’t time for celebration yet. As it notes in its blog, “We’re excited to see how far we’ve come. But now, it’s back to work – because we still have another 6 billion people to get on WhatsApp, and a long way left to go.”

Recently, WhatsApp had said it will stop charging USD 1 per year subscription fee to go completely free for its users across the world. Also, it will not introduce any third-party ads for monetisation and is going to experiment with new models to stay ad-free, it added.

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