WhatsApp Hits 1 Billion Users, Unclear How To Monetize Success

The news didn’t make it into Facebook’s stellar earnings report, but its WhatsApp unit is doing great.

Indeed, the messaging app has officially surpassed 1 billion monthly active users. “Couldn't be more proud of our small team doing so much in just seven years,” WhatsApp’s founder Jan Koum notes in a new Facebook post.

The app is now processing 42 billion messages a day, including 1.6 photos and 250 million videos.

For all of its success, however, it’s still not clear how Facebook plans to profit off WhatsApp.

In fact, the app recently decided to drop its annual subscription fee of 99 cents. In its pursuit of more users, the Facebook unit found that a lot of people didn’t have debit or credit card numbers, which made paying the fee tricky.  

That, and potential users were apparently worried that they would lose connections with friends and family after the first year of service -- when the subscription fee kicked in. 

Upon the announcement, last month, WhatsApp assured users the change did not mean that ads were coming to the service. Rather, it’s apparently looking into new features that will connect businesses to their customers.

“Starting this year, we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from,” the company wrote in a blog post. “That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight.”

Thanks to significant reach in more than 20 countries, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger stand alone as “global powerhouse" apps, according to eMarketer.

By 2018, the number of messaging app users worldwide will reach 2 billion -- representing 80% of smartphone users -- eMarketer expects.

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