WhatsApp is one of the world’s most popular messaging apps and the latest figures prove that, as the service now has 1.5 billion monthly active users, as per its parent’s Q4 2017 financials disclosed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday. Facebook acquired WhatsApp back in 2014 in a $19 billion deal, marking its largest acquisition to date. Some analysts were skeptical whether WhatsApp was really worth the high price, as it only had 450 million MAUs and 315 million daily active users when it was acquired. Mr. Zuckerberg on Wednesday said that WhatsApp’s 1.5 billion MAUs now exchange roughly 60 billion messages each day, with the app adding approximately 200 million users in the three-month period ending December 31st.
Mr. Zuckerberg also took a slight jab at Snapchat on the occasion, highlighting the fact that Facebook’s Instagram and WhatsApp are the top two most popular Story-sharing apps, each boasting 300 million DAUs. Snapchat, meanwhile, has only 178 million DAUs in total. The multi-billionaire further noted that internal research indicates that soon users will post more stories through the two apps than they post on their news feeds. Strictly referring to messaging apps, Facebook is clearly dominant worldwide. Between WhatsApp and Messenger, Facebook-owned products are the go-to instant messaging solutions in every part of the world save for China. Facebook is frequently adding new features and tweaks to improve its apps, striving to maintain their momentum.
Just recently, for instance, the social media giant launched a new WhatsApp Business app specifically designed to allow small businesses to better communicate with their existing or potential customers. Unlike the regular WhatsApp application, the WhatsApp Business service also works with landline phone numbers and packs a number of enterprise-oriented features. WhatsApp Business can co-exist along with the regular WhatsApp on the same device, as they are separate apps and users can have an account on both without having one interfere with the other. The new WhatsApp Business app is currently available on Android smartphones and tablets in a number of markets, including India, Brazil, the United States, Italy, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Indonesia. More markets are expected to follow shortly and WhatsApp is likely to continue growing over the course of 2018.