Whatsapp hits 500 million active users

While waiting to hear whether European regulators will clear its $19 billion acquisition by Facebook, the mobile messaging app maker WhatsApp hit a big milestone yesterday: It has 500 million active monthly users. They are sharing 700 million photos and 100 million videos per day.

Last year in August, WhatsApp had 200 million users while the number doubled to 430 million in January 2014. The instant messaging app had also revealed that it processes 50 billion messages on an average every day.

WhatsApp was founded in February 2009 by Jan Koum and Brian Acton. Koum named the company WhatsApp because it sounded like “what’s up.” At the early stages, Koum and Acton burned through a lot of savings and the app kept on crashing. Koum almost decided to quit working on WhatsApp, but Acton persuaded him to keep working on it for a few more months.

Things turned around when Apple launched push notifications for the iPhone, which allowed developers to ping users even if they were not using an app. WhatsApp was able to use push notifications to keep users engaged and encourage more people to join.

Geographically, the company’s four biggest sources of growth right now are Mexico, Brazil, India and Russia, Koum said.

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. The company has arranged deals with carriers there to offer unlimited WhatsApp data usage for 30 cents per month.

In Brazil, WhatsApp has 45 million actives. “The message growth rate in Brazil — it’s not like a hockey stick, it’s like a vertical line,” Koum said.

In Turkey, where Twitter had recently been blocked, WhatsApp has 14 million active users. WhatsApp just hired its first Turkish-speaking employee yesterday, Koum said. It is working to hire customer support people who speak all the languages its customers do.