Social media and communication platforms are serious business, with every big company trying or having tried in the past to get a piece of this giant pie. But sadly and ironically, such platforms can only become very successful once they have become successful, as they feed on their existing popularity to draw in more and more users. WhatsApp is a prime example.

The application was incorporated in 2009, starting off as an app that displayed status updates. Over the course of months and years, the app added a messaging system and more features, trying to rope in users that could not be satiated by SMS and desktop based IMs and those who could not use BlackBerry's proprietary and hardware-locked Messenger service. By April 2014, it boasted of over 500 million monthly active users, sending and receiving over 10 billion messages per day. When Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 Billion, one of WhatsApp's early investors received an approximate 50 times the return on their investment!

In February 2016, WhatsApp announced that it had crossed the 1 billion milestone in monthly active users. This meant that about 1 in 7 people on the Earth utilized WhatsApp at least once a month, signalling a major milestone in the app's popularity. And today, they has announced that it is even bigger than before, boasting of 1 billion daily active users!

The 1 billion daily active users figure sits alongside 1.3 billion monthly active users, indicating a slight slow down at the rate at which new users are added. Engagement rates within WhatsApp remain as high as ever though, as users send over 55 billion messages per day, share 4.5 billion photos and 1 billion videos per day. Figures like these can only be imagined by many, as they stand testament to the app's current popularity all over the world despite its shortcomings.

What are your thoughts on WhatsApp's latest milestone? Let us know in the comments below!


Source: WhatsApp Blog