According to Whatsapp Blog, one of every seven people in the world uses the messenger app to communicate with friends and family members. The post also points out certain other uses of WhatsApp, such as sharing important news and updates, running businesses, finding a date, making important purchases, and so on.
WhatsApp stated in its blog: “WhatsApp began as a simple idea: ensuring that anyone could stay in touch with family and friends anywhere on the planet, without costs or gimmicks standing in the way.”
The messenger app was founded by former Yahoo engineers Brian Acton and Jan Koum in Silicon Valley. The app has instead gained more popularity in South America, Europe, India, and Africa, where mobile network carriers have high texting fees, making it cheaper for residents to communicate through WhatsApp. Besides, WhatsApp’s voice calling features enable users to make calls over the Internet instead of relying on mobile network carriers.
In 2014, Facebook purchased WhatsApp for $22 billion, after which the number of WhatsApp users more than doubled. Today, Facebook is considering a variety of ways to monetize the messenger app.
Last month, the company announced that it is looking into ways to boost revenues by making it possible for WhatsApp users to communicate with organizations and businesses. This means that, in the near future, WhatsApp users will be able to use the service to book flights, open bank accounts, and purchase movie tickets, and so on. However, the immediate focus will be on increasing the app’s reliability, simplicity, speed, and security.
Interestingly, Google has also announced that the number of Gmail users is now one billion. The company, which hasn’t exhibited much talent in running social networking services, has created the most successful email services in the world.
