How much money whatsapp makes
WhatsApp Revenue and Usage Statistics (2022)
WhatsApp is a messaging app for smartphones created in 2009 by two former Yahoo employees, Brian Acton and Jan Koum.
It was Koum who saw the potential of operating through the Apple App Store after purchasing an iPhone in early 2009. The app initially focused on statuses; Koum later revealed that part of his motivation was to stop missing calls while he was the gym.
Users quickly came to use this as an instant messaging service, planting the seed for what the app would become. WhatsApp 2.0 incorporated the messaging function that would come to be the app’s defining feature.
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WhatsApp was unique at the time, outside of Blackberry’s BBM, in providing a free message service that allowed users to log in with their phone number. WhatsApp 2.0 was an instant success, quickly reaching 250,000 active users. This was enough for Acton to convince a circle of fellow ex-Yahoo employees to part with $250,000 in seed funding.
WhatsApp incorporated multimedia messaging later in the same year, and was released on Android the following. From that point, WhatsApp marched to ubiquitous status. By October 2011, one billion messages were being sent per day; by early 2013, WhatsApp could boast 200 million active users.
Facebook clearly saw WhatsApp as a potential threat to its own offering, and therefore flexed its muscles. In February 2014, it moved to acquire WhatsApp for $19 billion, which remains its largest acquisition to date and one of the largest tech acquisitions in history.
This has caused some degree of controversy related to data sharing with the parent company, despite promises of increasing levels of encryption, reportedly end-to-end by 2016. Both founders have left the company based on these concerns.
WhatsApp, however, remains the market leader its sector. Since its simple beginnings, it has added features such as voice calling, video calling, group calls (video and voice), and in early 2018 launched WhatsApp Business.
It has also added payments in its two biggest markets, India and Brazil.
Worldwide, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging service in over 100 countries. It has over two billion active users and is one of the few apps to be downloaded over five billion times.
We have collected data and statistics on WhatsApp. Read on below to find out more.
WhatsApp key statistics- WhatsApp has over two billion users worldwide, India is the app’s largest market
- WhatsApp is one of the few apps to be downloaded over five billion times on Android and iOS
- It is the most popular messaging app in over 100 countries (SimilarWeb)
- In 2021, it generated $8.7 billion in revenue, almost all from the WhatsApp for Business app
Want to learn more about the most popular social apps? Our Social App report includes financials, usage, demographics and benchmarks on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn.
WhatsApp revenue
WhatsApp is a very small part of Facebook’s overall revenue. It generates almost all of it from WhatsApp for Business, which charges businesses for usage after 1,000 conversations.
WhatsApp annual revenue 2018 to 2021 ($mm)
| 2018 | 443 |
| 2019 | 507 |
| 2020 | 632 |
| 2021 | 790 |
Note: Values are estimated. Sources: Forbes, Social App Report
WhatsApp users
WhatsApp is one of the most used apps in the world and the most popular messaging app in over 100 countries.
It reached 2.2 billion active users in 2021.
WhatsApp quarterly users 2012 to 2022 (mm)
WhatsApp annual users 2012 to 2021 (mm)
| 2012 | 103 |
| 2013 | 213 |
| 2014 | 409 |
| 2015 | 719 |
| 2016 | 1076 |
| 2017 | 1323 |
| 2018 | 1560 |
| 2019 | 1813 |
| 2020 | 2102 |
| 2021 | 2289 |
Sources: Company data, Social App Report
WhatsApp users by country
WhatsApp has users in every region, as the most popular messaging platform in the world that’s to be expected.
It wasn’t as popular in the US and UK, but that has started to change in recent years.
WhatsApp users by country 2021 (mm)
| India | 390 |
| Brazil | 148 |
| Indonesia | 112 |
| United States | 98 |
| Philippines | 88 |
| Mexico | 77 |
| Turkey | 56 |
| Egypt | 55 |
| Germany | 44 |
| Nigeria | 40 |
| Italy | 35 |
Source: eMarketer
WhatsApp cumulative downloads
WhatsApp surpassed five billion cumulative downloads in 2021, one of a shortlist of less than 10 apps.
WhatsApp cumulative downloads 2013 to 2021 (mm)
| 2013 | 0.5 |
| 2014 | 0.8 |
| 2015 | 1.2 |
| 2016 | 2 |
| 2017 | 2.9 |
| 2018 | 3.4 |
| 2019 | 4.3 |
| 2020 | 4.9 |
| 2021 | 5.3 |
Sources: App Annie, Facebook, Sensor Tower
WhatsApp vs competitors: users
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WhatsApp FAQ
What years was WhatsApp the most downloaded app globally?
In 2017 and 2019, WhatsApp was the most downloaded app globally, with 924 and 850 million downloads, respectively.
What percentage of internet users use WhatsApp?
Excluding China, 69 percent of internet users use WhatsApp (GlobalWebIndex)
How much activity is there on WhatsApp each day?
Over 100 billion WhatsApp messages are sent and over two billion minutes are spent on WhatsApp voice and video calls per day (Facebook)
How many countries is WhatsApp available in?
WhatsApp is available in 180 countries and in 60 languages
How much did Facebook pay for WhatsApp?
Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014
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How Does WhatsApp Make Money?
WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum as an alternative to pricey SMS services.
The app allows users to upload their contact book and message anyone who has the app installed, at no cost. It is available for iPhones, Androids, and desktops. If it's free-to-use, how does WhatsApp make money?
Meta (META), formerly Facebook, purchased WhatsApp in February 2014 for $19 billion and according to the 2014 Facebook Form 10-Q, during the nine months preceding Sept 30, 2014, WhatsApp generated revenue of $1.29 million.
In 2018, WhatsApp co-founder and Facebook Inc. director Jan Koum announced his departure from Facebook. Media reports indicate that Koum decided to leave after a disagreement with the company over its use of user data and its desire to allow advertisements on WhatsApp. Koum, along with his co-founder Brian Acton, has long been an advocate for the privacy of WhatsApp users.
In March 2022, WhatsApp had more than two billion users in 180 countries and was Meta Platforms, Inc.'s (formerly Facebook) second-biggest property, after its namesake app.
It surpassed Instagram Facebook Messenger, the third- and fourth-biggest properties. Read on to see how WhatsApp makes money.
Key Takeaways
- WhatsApp is a mobile app that allows users to message and call each other over the Internet.
- WhatsApp was founded in 2009 and bought by Meta (formerly Facebook) in 2014 for $19 billion.
- Meta's second biggest property is now WhatsApp, after its Instagram and Facebook Messenger service.
- The way WhatsApp used to make money was through a subscription model. It cost $1 to download and then $1 a year going forward.
- Meta eventually removed the $1 fee and made WhatsApp a free service, with the idea that consumers would communicate with businesses through it and businesses would pick up the cost.
- Revenue in 2021 for WhatsApp was $8.7 billion.
One Dollar at a Time and Beyond
The short answer used to be $1 at a time. In some countries, the app used to cost about $1 to download; in others, the first year is free, but each subsequent year costs $1; in other words, WhatsApp had a subscription model.
At the peak under this model, it had about 700 million users worldwide; yearly revenue could thus be estimated at $700 million per year at that time.
In January 2016, Facebook revealed in a 10-Q filing that because WhatsApp was monetized in "a very limited fashion," it may not be generating meaningful revenue in the long term, hinting that the strategy would change. Shortly after, WhatsApp announced in a blog post that the era of subscriptions had come to an end and the messaging app would now be free to use.
There are still no ads in the app, however. "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 at the time. The goal is to have people communicate directly with their banks, airlines, etc. over the app, while the businesses pick up the bill previously paid through subscriptions.
Though WhatsApp's financial statements aren't public (Meta doesn't break down its revenue by company), Forbes estimated potential revenue to be $27–$29 billion by Q1 of 2022.
As of March 2022, WhatsApp had over two billion users.
WhatsApp Business, the business platform of the messaging app, provides a host of tools for businesses to access company insights and measure metrics, making it an attractive tool for businesses.
Focusing on Growth
WhatsApp is globally popular—the top three countries are: India with 390 million users, 108 million in Brazil, and 75 million in the United States. With SMS apps, growth is exponential; when one person in a social group downloads and advocates using the app, many new users download the app to communicate with the original person. These new users then encourage other members of their other social groups to use the app.
By increasing market penetration, the app becomes indispensable and the user base grows.
Information from StatistaIs It Really About the Money Though?
Industry insiders have speculated that part of the rationale behind acquiring WhatsApp was for Meta to access user’s behavioral data and personal information.
With location sharing data, 100 billion messages sent per day, and access to users' entire contact lists, Meta has access to a ton of personal information—all uploaded and saved on its servers. While Mark Zuckerberg has previously promised that this data won’t be used to improve consumer targeting in Meta ads, it will be unless the user changes the settings to not share information with Meta.
End-to-End Encryption Controversy
WhatsApp, as well as other messaging providers (including Apple), have been in hot water with governments around the world after it was determined that terrorists used apps to communicate before and during attacks.
Governments and counter-terrorism agencies wanted the companies behind these apps to share the encryption key to gain access to messages sent and received by the terrorists. The companies, however, refused to oblige. This led to WhatsApp's adoption of end-to-end encryption, which prevents anyone, including WhatsApp, except the sender and receiver from gaining access to the data shared on the app.
How Many Users Does WhatsApp Have?
According to industry estimates, WhatsApp has more than 2 billion users worldwide as of 2022.
Is WhatsApp Really Secure and Private?
Yes, WhatsApp messages, including text, images, and other media, are secured through end-to-end encryption. This means that they cannot be intercepted or read during transmission.
Does WhatsApp Make Money?
Yes, WhatsApp generated more than $8.7 billion in revenue in 2021 for its parent company, Meta (formerly Facebook).
The Bottom Line
WhatsApp has become one of the most popular messaging services in the world with only room to grow. Whether you believe that Meta overpaid for WhatsApp or not, the fact is that the app has a growing revenue stream with endless possibilities that will allow it to bring in more revenues over time.
Billions in advance: what messengers earn on
Why messaging services began to cost billions and how can you make money on them?
The creator of the WhatsApp messenger, Jan Koum, is 38 years old, his fortune is almost $ 7 billion, the founder of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel, is only 24 years old, and he also managed to become a billionaire thanks to his project.
The boom in mobile messaging services has allowed young entrepreneurs to quickly break into the Forbes rankings. Their companies still generate almost no revenue, but are nonetheless valued by investors in the billions of dollars. nine0005
Finished reading here
WhatsApp, Snapchat, Chinese WeChat, and other services belong to the second generation of instant messengers. Popular in the early 2000s, services like ICQ were mostly used on desktop computers. Much has changed since then: the massive spread of smartphones and the availability of mobile Internet have shifted the center of communication to portable devices. Few of the former leaders managed to rebuild - the audience of the same ICQ year by year is reduced by tens of percent. nine0005
The victims of the new wave of messengers are not only their outdated competitors, but also traditional types of communication - the same SMS messages.
“The reason is simple: messengers are free to use, there are many different features, more advantages than previously popular means of communication,” Jun Masuda, executive director and director of strategy and marketing of the Japanese Line Corporation, which owns the messenger of the same name, tells Forbes. There is another factor: many have abandoned individual accounts - they use a regular phone number instead. Now you do not need to look for an interlocutor on the service, it is enough to save his phone number in a notebook. nine0005
As a result, large corporations became interested in instant messengers. WhatsApp was bought by the social network Facebook for $19 billion. The same Facebook and Google were fighting for Snapchat. But Evan Spiegel has so far refused to sell the project. Yahoo is going to invest in Snapchat, the messenger's valuation has already grown from $3 billion to $10 billion.
Players who understand the value of instant messengers consider it important to connect them with their services, which is most likely why this trend is emerging, ”Masuda believes. nine0005
Messenger audience is huge. Line is used by 460 million people, WhatsApp by 600 million people. How do messengers make money?
Emotions with a picture
Advertising is considered the main way to make money on the Internet. Almost all popular messengers do not have it. "When ads are involved, the user becomes a product," said Jan Koum, who previously sold ads at Yahoo for several years. The creators of WhatsApp have chosen an easy way to monetize through a paid subscription: the first year of communication is free, and then $1 per year. The expectation is that in the first year the user will become attached to the messenger and will be forced to pay in order not to lose contact with friends.
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Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel thinks otherwise: the first advertisements will soon appear in the messenger. It will not be targeted, Spiegel promised. However, this was quite difficult to implement, because the main feature of Snapchat is that it removes user content from its servers and cannot analyze it.
Another way to make money is selling stickers. These are pictures with which users can express emotions. They are becoming a kind of communication standard, not only in instant messengers, but also in social networks: recently stickers appeared on Facebook, a little earlier - on the VKontakte social network. Line, for example, has a dedicated Creators Market service where users can create and sell their own stickers. nine0005
Legend has it that Jan Koum hung a note next to his desk from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton: “No ads! No games! No tricks!
Asian messengers are different.
The strategy of Line, WeChat, and Kakao Talk is to build an ecosystem of additional services around the messenger — games, mobile commerce, music sales, and others. For example, LINE earned $336 million in 2013. Game sales accounted for about 60%, and stickers accounted for another 20%. nine0005
Masuda believes multifunctionality is the future of instant messengers. According to him, smartphones are now becoming a replacement for personal computers, and instant messengers are turning into analogues of Internet portals: they should play the role of intermediaries.
Secrecy
One statement by the South Korean authorities led to an increase in the popularity of the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov in the country. The country's prosecutor's office offered to monitor the forums in order to stop the spread of rumors, and the Koreans immediately thought about the confidentiality of their negotiations.
Telegram, as its creators say, provides such privacy. nine0005
A similar story happened with the FireChat messenger, which allows you to communicate without accessing the Internet. And at the same time, anonymity is maintained. The first wave of popularity of this messenger took place in March, when the number of downloads reached 100,000 per day.
This came as a surprise to Open Garden, as FireChat was more of a hobby for them.
The second wave of popularity came in October during demonstrations in Hong Kong - more than 100,000 downloads.
Messengers, whose main feature is the secrecy of correspondence, have become a mass phenomenon in just the last two or three years. In addition to Telegram and FireChat, there is also CryptoCat, which Edward Snowden used during his first communication with journalists after escaping from the United States, or the Swiss messenger Threema.
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Most of these messengers are free, do not offer paid features, and, accordingly, do not bring revenue to their creators. Only the Threema messenger is paid - a little less than €2.
Now the market of instant messengers resembles the market of social networks - there were many of them, they were different. “If you look very far into the future, then, most likely, there will remain messengers with distinctive functions, and messengers that are the main ones for everyone in their country. But gradually they will merge with each other,” says Masuda from Line. The question is which of the messengers will become an analogue of Facebook in the social network market. nine0005
How does WhatsApp make money? Simple answer
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Whatsapp started in 2009 and they have flourished ever since. If you, like me, were curious, you must have wondered this question: how does WhatsApp make money? Many people want to know how they started small and became one of the biggest messaging apps in the world.
Well, I did a thorough research and found some really interesting things about this popular messaging app. nine0005
Announcements
For those who read this and ask what is WhatsApp? Here's a quick answer:
WhatsApp is a messaging app for friends and family. You will get fast, easy and secure messaging and free calls. Download WhatsApp today to exchange messages, photos, videos and voice messages with your contacts.
Before I answer the question: How does WhatsApp make money? Let's find out the brief history of this messaging app. nine0005
How did WhatsApp come about?
Jan Caum and Brian Acton launched WhatsApp in 2009 for a reason. They worked with Yahoo for 9 years, from 1998 to 2007. When they worked with Yahoo, they tried to find a job on Facebook, but they constantly got rejected.
So, in 2009, these two had a brilliant idea after acquiring the iPhone, and they realized that the app industry was seriously undervalued. And they were right, because then the Apple store existed for only six months.
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They got together and created WhatsApp, and the first version they released was not yet a messaging app. You could only update your status, which other people could see. They really did a great job when Apple launched Push Notifications in the same year that WhatsApp was born. The app was gaining momentum and you could ping users when anyone in their contact list updated their status. Users liked the feature so much that they started using it to ping each other, which led to the app turning into a mobile instant messaging service. nine0005
The messaging tool now at the heart of the service was included in WhatsApp version 2.0, and the number of users increased to 250,000 in 2011. By the start of 2011, WhatsApp had risen to the top of the 20 Apple App Store app list.
As the app grew in popularity, its founders attracted the attention of potential investors. The creators were strongly opposed because they intended to create an ad-free service and were concerned that taking on venture capital would force them to sacrifice their ideals.
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The founders hated ads and were against ad revenue, according to a 2012 WhatsApp blog post titled "Why We Don't Sell Ads."
Regarding their reluctance to take on venture capital, WhatsApp's founders accepted $8 million from Sequoia Capital in April 2011, but only after they were guaranteed the service would remain ad-free.
By February 2013, WhatsApp had grown to nearly 200 million active users and Sequoia invested another $50 million worth $1.5 billion. But if there were no ads and plans to include them in the future, how did WhatsApp make money in its early days? nine0005
In its early days, WhatsApp used a freemium business model in which the app was free for a year to attract users and then paid a tiny annual membership fee of $0.99 for continued use.
Facebook buys WhatsApp
WhatsApp's success through 2016 was the least of the good things that happened to Ian and Brian. In 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp. But they ran into trouble after selling the Facebook messaging app.
Facebook has withdrawn from its agreement not to advertise on WhatsApp. nine0005
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Brian promoted the idea that users would be charged after sending a certain number of messages, but Facebook rejected the idea and this led to Brian leaving, and in 2018 Yang followed suit.
How does WhatsApp make money?
WhatsApp makes money from three sources: WhatsApp for Business, WhatsApp Pay, and Click to WhatsApp ads. nine0005
WhatsApp for Business
WhatsApp for Business allows you to send and receive WhatsApp messages on your computer. Collect reviews, close deals, listen to your customers on all the devices they use every day. So how does WhatsApp make money from WhatsApp for Business? WhatsApp makes money by billing registered companies for delayed responses. Businesses are allowed to respond to user messages for free within 24 hours. As businesses and customers become accustomed to using WhatsApp, the company may charge for messages at a set rate.
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WhatsApp Pay
What is WhatsApp Pay and how is it going to make money on WhatsApp monetization? It has been a long time since WhatsApp introduced its WhatsApp-Pay payment service in India and Brazil. The reason the service was introduced so quickly in India could be the success of Paytm, another popular chat app that has made its way into our daily lives. But there is a difference between both applications.
WhatsApp pay is a payment feature that the app adds to help customers use it. This will help increase in-app customer payments, which could lead to more revenue for WhatsApp. nine0005
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You can add a Send Message button to your Facebook or Instagram ads with ads that go to WhatsApp, which starts a chat thread in the WhatsApp Business app.
How much does WhatsApp earn?
In the nine months leading up to September 30, 2014, WhatsApp generated only $1.28 million in revenue.
