WhatsApp now has 900 million users a month

4 Sep 2015

WhatsApp has cemented its position among the leading smartphone messaging services on numerous occasions. News that it has reached 900 million active monthly users shows how much its popularity has soared this year.

Back in January, WhatsApp – part of Facebook’s extensive portfolio – announced that it had reached the 700 million landmark, hitting 800 million in April.

Now at the 900 million mark, it’s creeping up on the magic 1 billion number which will prove incredibly significant.

Facebook itself reached a 1 billion landmark last week, although that was for users in a single day, making it over 30 times more popular than WhatsApp.

Interestingly, the new numbers keep WhatsApp ahead of Facebook’s own Messenger service, which only has 700 million monthly users as of June, and which I’ve disabled on my phone because it’s So. Damn. Annoying.

WhatsApp’s easy-to-use, clear format – one that’s not tied down to Facebook members – has seen its popularity continue to grow as people move away from traditional, costly text messaging.

WhatsApp has also been upgrading its service, bit by tiny bit. For example, back in November of last year, it introduced read receipts on messages.

Then, during the summer, it changed to allow you to mark messages as unread, and brought web messaging to both Android and iOS.

However, how on Earth WhatsApp can be turned profitable is yet to be discovered. There are no ads, no paid for content and the app is free. So, big numbers, ‘Yay!’ – for us consumers, at least.

Main image via Jan Persiel /Flickr

Gordon Hunt was a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com