Despite being acquired by Facebook, which caused some privacy issues to surface, popular messaging app WhatsApp has continued to add users at a rapid pace, reaching over 500 million as of today, and a far cry away from the 465 million attained two months ago.
These half a billion users are “regular, active WhatsApp users”
WhatsApp also notes that these half a billion users are “regular, active WhatsApp users,” not simply “registered” users, which is a common number reported for many other messaging apps. By comparison, WhatsApp’s closest competitors are Skype with over 350 million users (though no public numbers have been released in some time) and WeChat, which sits at 355 million active users as of late March.
“we’ve grown fastest in countries like Brazil, India, Mexico, and Russia”
“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.”
WhatsApp is available for the most popular mobile platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry.