The Wall Street Journal reported today that WhatsApp‘s monthly users have surpassed 250 Million. The free messaging platform only uses data to send and receive messages without SMS charges. It’s worldwide popularity has skyrocketed since its release back in 2009. Now, hard numbers prove that WhatsApp is not only here to stay, but is muscling into territory held by giants like Twitter and Skype.
From the WSJ piece
WhatsApp tells The Wall Street Journal it has more than 250 million monthly active users, the first time it has revealed a rough number of users for its popular smartphone messaging app.
The figure is impressive for a company that launched its app just four years ago and that spends no money marketing itself. It makes WhatsApp one of the largest messaging platforms and possibly bigger than Twitter, which in December announced it had eclipsed 200 million monthly active users. Microsoft MSFT -3.18%in October said its video-chat service Skype had 280 million monthly active users.
I use this app daily, and haven’t gone over my SMS limit since (something that used to be a major problem). WhatsApp can only be used to message with people who already use the app. So it required a little politicking with the folks I text most. Now they’re hooked and we can all chat away without fear of overages.
If you use WhatsApp let us know in the comments. What do you like? What could use improvement?
[Via: WSJ]