WhatsApp says it's serving 250 million monthly active users

If you had doubts about which cross-platform messaging app rules them all, this will dispel them all. WhatsApp has announced that it serves a user base of 250

Nishtha Kanal|Jun 21, 2013, 15:19:44 IST

If you had doubts about which cross-platform messaging app rules them all, then here's something to dispel them all. WhatsApp has announced that it serves a user base of 250 million monthly active users.

In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, WhatsApp revealed its user base figures for the first time ever. The news comes only a couple of months after WhatsApp’s CEO Jan Kuom boasted that the service had a bigger user base than micro-blogging giant Twitter. Though Kuom did not reveal what the figures were back then, he’s made the 250 million mark clear now.

This gives WhatsApp a lead of 50 million users over Twitter, a service that boasted of 200 million users at last count. The four-year-old cross-platform messaging service has left the likes of Viber, Nimbuzz and WeChat behind and is now running neck-in-neck with the likes of Microsoft’s Skype and Facebook Messenger. No threat to the telcoms and SMS

Larger than Twitter too

The app ranks number one in the free apps section of the Android Play Store and in the paid section of the iOS App Store. If that wasn’t enough to show just how popular the app is in India, let us remind you that Nokia had launched the Asha 210 QWERTY phone back in April with a dedicated WhatsApp button, the first for any cross-platform messaging app. WhatsApp was the first service to have a dedicated button for an app after Facebook for HTC Chacha and HTC First.

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The service, which usually processes about 18 billion inbound and 12 billion outbound messages a day, had recently seen a spike in activity where it claims that it processed a whopping 27 billion inbound 17 billion outbound messages in a 24 hour period. WhatsApp did not specify the details of when the figures were collected.

WhatsApp seems keen on building a strong user base and Kuom had mentioned back in April that monetisation is currently not an issue for the service. “We’re looking forward to a world with billions of phones,” Koum said. “And once that happens it’s going to be extremely easy to monetize. But a lot more people need to join the smartphone revolution and a lot more people need to buy more goods on their phones.”

By Nishtha Kanal

Intrigued by all things social, Nishtha will invariably tweet about you. When not tweeting or writing about the next viral video, you will hear her proclaiming her love to Metallica, James Hetfield, Opeth, Akerfeldt and all bands that go 'growl'. She also obsesses about ACP Pradyuman and South Park and you will always find her moving around with a book. Her focus is on all the happening stuff in the tech domain, and she won't hesitate to take a shot at some of the oddball devices that make their way to our labs.