WhatsApp Messenger is continuing to increase it users base. As per the latest numbers revealed by the company, it is clearly the leader in the current instant messaging market. Today, WhatsApp which was acquired by Facebook in February this year has announced that it has surpassed 500 million monthly active users globally.
The popular instant messaging platform has achieved this milestone in mere five years of its inception. WhatsApp also said that its users are now sharing more than 700 million photos and 100 million videos daily. The app’s fastest growing markets are Brazil, India, Mexico and Russia. WhatsApp has always been popular in emerging markets India being one of its main target.
WhatsApp now has 48 million active users in India alone, its largest single country. Koum noted that this number is about half the number of Facebook’s active users in India.Although it has kept the platform simple and clean until now, WhatsApp will soon add voice calling feature during Q2 of 2014. Earlier on April 1, WhatsApp had announced that its users exchanged 64 billion messages in 24 hours, setting a new record for the service.
Social messaging usage is going to explode further with affordable data plans and budget handsets. A Flurry’s report in January revealed that social messaging tripled in 2013 and an Ovum report predicted that world will have over 2 billion users in 2014.