WhatsApp is the king of the messaging world, and that title doesn't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. Recently on Twitter, WhatsApp CEO and founder Jan Koum announced that the popular Facebook owned messenger is home to 600 million active users.
Koum even made sure to mention that there's a difference between active and registered users. He did not stop there; he went on to bash competing platforms such as Line and Kik for only talking about registered users instead of the amount of active users using those services.
Not to be sly, but Google does this with its Google+ social network as well, so not much confidence there we guess.
It's interesting how WhatsApp has managed to reach 600 million active users already. Back in April, around the same time Facebook announced that it was moving to gobble up WhatsApp, it was stated that the platform has over 500 million active users.
At this rate, WhatsApp could one day surpass 1 billion active users, as the platform is growing rapidly, more so now that Facebook is running things.
The two closest competing platforms behind WhatsApp right now is Viber with 100 million active users and WeChat with over 438 million active users. With how the Chinese are cracking down on software from the West, it would come as no surprise to see the government make a move against WhatsApp to weaken its growth in the Chinese market.
Can Facebook monetize WhatsApp?
We're quite intrigued to see how Facebook plans to regain that $19 billion used to acquire WhatsApp. The platform has been without advertisement ever since it came to life, which means it would be difficult for Facebook to throw ads at the platform since users have become quite fond of the no advertisement system.
Whatever Facebook is planning, the company would be wise in its approach. WhatsApp needs to be monetized for those billions to return to Facebook's coffers, but that's easier said than done.
We expect WhatsApp to operate without ads for quite some time, until something comes along that gives Facebook the perfect chance to make an attempt to regain its investment in the platform.
