Whatsapp has reached a new daily record, with four billion outbound messages sent and six billion messages received.
Whatsapp is a real-time, cross-platform smartphone messaging service. The application is available on iOS, BlackBerry, Android, Symbian and Windows Phone, and aims to provide users a free alternative to SMS.
In October last year, Whatsapp reached the one billion messages per day milestone. The app has also consistently been among the top paid apps on the platforms it's available on.
Recently, research by World Wide Worx showed the service is growing rapidly in SA. Whatsapp has gone from 0% in 2010, to being used by 26% of local mobile users.
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck says the growth of Whatsapp is largely attributed to the massive marketing push of the service by Nokia, in response to the growth of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). BBM usage in SA has increased by 467% since 2010. Home-grown mobile social network Mxit is currently at 23% usage.
“The use of instant messaging and social media services are the most interesting, because they are the most revealing about how the mobile user is changing,” says Goldstuck, adding that data spend on cellphones is up by 50% since 2010. Instant messaging accounts for the biggest increase in specific usage over the same period.
No ads, ever
Explaining why the app charges a $0.99 download fee (although it also offers lengthy free trials), Whatsapp says: “These days companies know literally everything about you, your friends, your interests, and they use it all to sell ads.
“When we sat down to start our own thing together three years ago, we wanted to make something that wasn't just another ad clearinghouse. We wanted to spend our time building a service people wanted to use because it worked and saved them money and made their lives better in a small way. We knew that we could charge people directly if we could do all those things. We knew we could do what most people aim to do every day: avoid ads.”
“Advertising isn't just the disruption of aesthetics, the insults to your intelligence and the interruption of your train of thought.
“When people ask us why we charge for WhatsApp, we say: 'Have you considered the alternative?'”
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