April 23, 2014

WhatsApp active user-base crosses the 500 million mark

by Sayan Chakravarty

Many times we have witnessed that an acquisition of a company ending up being detrimental for its growth, but that’s sure not the case with WhatsApp which was acquired by Facebook a couple of months back for $19 billion in cash and stock options. In a blog post today, WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum announced that the popular messaging app has crossed the 500 million mark for its total active users. The Facebook-owned app had 450 million active users before the social network giant snapped it up. “In the last few months, we’ve grown fastest in countries like Brazil, India, Mexico, and Russia, and our users are also sharing more than 700 million photos and 100 million videos every single day,” wrote Jan Koum in the blog. “We could go on, but for now, it’s more important that we get back to work — because here at WhatsApp, we’re just getting started.”

Facebook has set the goal to reach 1 billion active users for the messaging app and it’s good to that the company is moving in the right direction. It acquired WhatsApp as part of a mission to connect the developing world and reach billions of people. WhatsApp was started by Jan Koum and Brian Acton in February 2009.