Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook feels that privacy-focused communications are the future of social networking, with messaging being the key player. That’s exactly what Facebook has planned for WhatsApp, Facebook’s largest messaging platform.
And this week, WhatsApp has reached its highest user milestone of 2 billion monthly actives.
WhatsApp’s explanation:
“We’re excited to share that, as of today, WhatsApp supports more than two billion users around the world. Mothers and fathers can reach their loved ones no matter where they are. Brothers and sisters can share moments that matter. Coworkers can collaborate, and businesses can grow by easily connecting with their customers. Private conversations that once were only possible face-to-face can now take place across great distances through instant chats and video calling. There are so many significant and special moments that take place over WhatsApp and we are humbled and honored to reach this milestone.“
From the above chart, you can see that Messenger is more common when it comes to western markets, WhatsApp is now the most used app all over the world, and it continues to grow the same way, especially gaining traction in developing markets.
In 2018, WhatsApp hit 1.5 billion users, since then it has been two years to reach this position. But as you can see, it has started gaining more momentum in countries like India where WhatsApp has become an epitome of communication between people and business as well. WhatsApp is also looking for a way to expand in this market more on the terms of WhatsApp business.
This has remained a challenge for Facebook for some time now. Last month Facebook announced they won’t be rolling out WhatsApp ads for now, as it was being released with monetization for the app in focus. Instead of that, Facebook is focusing on eCommerce market, they have already started buying eCommerce providers and tools that allow WhatsApp to connect with customers.
Due to privacy concerns, Facebook had to re-think its traditional monetization approach. In the beginning, there were few concerns that Facebook might weaken the privacy of WhatsApp as Facebook is know for Privacy blunders in the past. But as we see, there hasn’t been any significant changes in this regard.
WhatsApp mentioned:
“Strong encryption is a necessity in modern life. We will not compromise on security because that would make people less safe. For even more protection, we work with top security experts, employ industry-leading technology to stop misuse as well as provide controls and ways to report issues – without sacrificing privacy.“
It’s really amazing to see how many people log into apps that are owned by Facebook on a daily basis.
If you take all of Facebook’s family of apps, around 2.26 billion people, that’s about 30% of the entire population of the world are using the Facebook app every day.
WhatsApp is and will remain a key part of this. And with future opportunities, it’ll become an even bigger platform as we move forward.
