So, a few hours ago, WhatsApp put up a blog post announcing that the service now has crossed 400 million active users. That is quite a number for a company that only has 50 employees. To put things into perspective, Twitter boasts of an active userbase of 200 million and they already had an IPO. This also means that there are twice as many people active on WhatsApp than there are on Twitter – at any given point of time. And WhatsApp seems to be in no mood to slow down. The App is already seen as a threat to Facebook with recent reports about people actually spending more time on WhatsApp than on Facebook.
Over the past year or so however, we have seen the emergence of new players in to the mobile messaging arena. These include the likes of Line, WeChat and the Desi version of WhatsApp called Hike. If that was not all, BlackBerry’s formidable BBM made it’s not so impressive debut on the Android platform. However, in spite of all these new products. WhatsApp seems to be doing great. In India, companies like WeChat and Hike are involved in heavy promotions across the board in order to gain a foothold in the market. WeChat for example has roped in a few popular Bollywood actors to enhance its image.
However, in spite of all this, there is little doubt that WhatsApp by far, leads the space by a huge margin. LINE had recently issued a press release announcing that they have crossed 300 Million users a few days ago. They have however not confirmed if this number is just the number of registered users. WhatsApp here clearly says that their 400 million figure is the number of their ACTIVE users. There could be more prople who have installed
The growth of WhatsApp is surprising considering the fact that it actually has the fewest features compared to almost all of its competition. Even the UI has remained more or less the same over the years. If all this wasn’t enough, it is free only for the first year (except on iOS where it is a completely free application,)
