Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp is well on its way to reaching one billion monthly active users (MAUs), with no clear indication as to how it will monetise this vast user base.
"WhatsApp now has 900 million monthly active users," co-founder and CEO Jan Koum announced on his Facebook page.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in February last year. At the time, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company was not worried about making the messaging app profitable yet, instead focusing on growth. A year-and-a-half later, the messaging app has exactly double the amount of MAUs than it did at acquisition: 450 million.
Last year, Zuckerberg said: "This may sound a little ridiculous to say, but for us, products don't really get that interesting to turn into businesses until they have about one billion people using them."
In April, Koum announced the messaging service had hit 800 million MAUs. If the service expands at the current rate, it will reach one billion MAUs by January next year.
Last week, a report by App Annie showed WhatsApp was in the top 10 most downloaded iOS apps, following the main Facebook app, Facebook Messenger and Facebook's Instagram.
Messenger has been available as a standalone app since late 2011. Last year, Facebook announced it will force mobile users to download the separate app and not allow them to chat through the main Facebook app any more.
Facebook plans to grow Messenger into its own platform, while WhatsApp will remain a pure messaging service. Echoing this philosophy, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton famously wrote on a Post-it note next to his desk: "No ads! No games! No gimmicks!"
The only hint the Internet giant has given as to how it could monetise WhatsApp was in May, when Facebook CFO David Wehner said at the JP Morgan technology conference in Boston: "There's going to be opportunities to bring some of those things [gained from B2C exploration] to WhatsApp."
Although nothing has come of this statement yet, World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck said at the time: "I think there will have to be some sort of an opt-in service where businesses will be able to broadcast to their followers. With this many users, it has the ability to monetise and find clever ways to do business."
WhatsApp is ranked as the number two social media network in South Africa, with 10 million users, after Facebook with 11.8 million, according to the World Wide Worx and Fuseware SA Social Media Landscape 2015 report.
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