WhatsApp hits 2 billion users, up from 1.5 billion 2 years ago

Published February 12, 2020

WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app, revealed today just how big it has become. The Facebook -owned app said it has amassed two billion users, up from 1.5 billion it revealed two years ago. It also remains free of ads and does not charge its users any fee.

The announcement today makes WhatsApp only the second app from Facebook to join the two-billion-users club. (Facebook’s marquee app has 2.5 billion users.) In an earnings call in late January, Facebook also noted that that there were 2.26 billion users that opened either Facebook, Messenger, Instagram or WhatsApp each day, up from 2.2 billion last quarter. The family of apps sees 2.89 billion total monthly users, up 9% year-over-year.

WhatsApp, founded 11 years ago and sold to Facebook for $19 billion six years ago, took the opportunity today to reiterate that it is committed to providing end-to-end encryption to its customers all over the globe — a crucial feature lauded by security experts everywhere but something that many governments are increasingly trying to contest.

“Strong encryption acts like an unbreakable digital lock that keeps the information you send over WhatsApp secure, helping protect you from hackers and criminals. Messages are only kept on your phone, and no one in between can read your messages or listen to your calls, not even us. Your private conversations stay between you,” WhatsApp wrote in a blog post.

Among the governments that are attempting to force WhatsApp into dropping encryption is India (which happens to be WhatsApp’s largest market, with 400 million users), Australia and the U.S.

Will Cathcart, the chief executive of WhatsApp, has said in the past that the messaging platform will fight for the privacy of its users. This was on display last October, when WhatsApp filed a suit in federal court accusing Israeli mobile surveillance maker NSO Group of creating an exploit that was used hundreds of times to hack into targets’ phones.

“Strong encryption is a necessity in modern life. We will not compromise on security because that would make people less safe. For even more protection, we work with top security experts, employ industry leading technology to stop misuse as well as provide controls and ways to report issues — without sacrificing privacy,” the company said today.

The two-billion milestone is a big feat for WhatsApp, which gained immense popularity without any marketing in developing markets such as India, where calls and texts were fairly expensive for most people. There is no app in India today that has a greater penetration than WhatsApp, for instance.

But even as WhatsApp has amassed all the users in the world, it is still struggling to make any substantial contribution to Facebook’s bottom line. In recent years, WhatsApp has introduced tools for businesses to connect with their customers. But something even more interesting has happened in the meantime.

Scores of startups in developing markets today are building businesses around WhatsApp. Vahan, a Y Combinator-backed startup, uses WhatsApp to help delivery startups find blue-collar workers. Digi-Prex, a Hyderabad-based startup, runs an eponymous online subscription pharmacy to serve patients with chronic diseases. Patients share their prescription with Digi-Prex through WhatsApp and the startup’s workers then deliver the medication to them on a recurring cycle.

I think the next justdial will be built on top of @whatsapp … especially for India (or other markets where WhatsApp is big)

anyone working on this?

— miten sampat (@miten) February 11, 2020

But this immense popularity has also created other challenges for WhatsApp. The platform has been used to spread false information that has resulted in gruesome fatalities in real world. WhatsApp has rushed to make product changes and run campaigns to educate users, but it’s a long battle.

WhatsApp reaches 400 million users in India, its biggest market

Published July 26, 2019

WhatsApp has amassed more than 400 million users in India, the instant messaging app confirmed today, reaffirming its gigantic reach in its biggest market.

Amitabh Kant, CEO of highly influential local think-tank NITI Aayog, revealed the new stat at a press conference held by WhatsApp in New Delhi on Thursday. A WhatsApp spokesperson confirmed that the platform indeed had more than 400 million monthly active users in the country.

The remarkable revelation comes more than two years after WhatsApp said it had hit 200 million users in India. WhatsApp — or Facebook — did not share any India-specific users count in the period in between.

The public disclosure today should help Facebook reaffirm its dominance in India, where it appears to be used by nearly every smartphone user. According to research firm Counterpoint, India has about 450 million smartphone users. (Some other research firms peg the number to be lower.)

It’s worth pointing out that WhatsApp also supports KaiOS — a mobile operating system for feature phones. Millions of KaiOS-powered JioPhone handsets have shipped in India. Additionally, there are about 500 million internet users, according to several industry estimates.

As WhatsApp becomes ubiquitous in the nation, the service is increasingly mutating to serve additional needs. Businesses such as social-commerce app Meesho have been built on top of WhatsApp. Facebook backed Meesho recently in what was its first investment of this kind in an Indian startup. Then, of course, WhatsApp has also come under hot water for its role in the spread of false information in the nation.

As ByteDance and others aggressively expand their businesses in India, Facebook’s perceived dominance in the country has come under attack in recent months. ByteDance’s TikTok, which has amassed 120 million users in India, has been heralded by many as the top competitor of Facebook.

A WhatsApp spokesperson also told TechCrunch that India remains WhatsApp’s biggest market. In 2017, Facebook said its marquee service had about 250 million users in India — a figure it has not updated in the years since.

WhatsApp, which has about 1.5 billion monthly active users worldwide, does not really have any major competitor in India. The closest to a competitor it has in the country is Messenger, another platform owned by Facebook, and Hike, which millions of users check everyday. Times Internet — an internet conglomerate in India that runs several news outlets, entertainment services and more — claims to reach 450 million users in the country each month.

At the aforementioned press conference, WhatsApp global chief Will Cathcart said WhatsApp also plans to roll out WhatsApp Pay, its payment service, to all its users toward the end of the year — something TechCrunch reported earlier.

Its arrival in India’s burgeoning payments space could create serious tension for Google Pay, Flipkart’s PhonePe and Paytm. For Facebook, WhatsApp Pay’s success is even more crucial as the company currently has no plans to bring cryptocurrency wallet Calibra to the country, it told TechCrunch on the sidelines of the Libra and Calibra unveil.

In a series of announcements this week, WhatsApp also unveiled a tie-up with NITI Aayog to promote women’s entrepreneurship. “By launching ‘gateway to a billion opportunities’ and our digital skills training program, we hope to shine a light on the amazing work already happening and build the next generation of entrepreneurs and change makers,” said Cathcart.

At a conference in Mumbai on Wednesday, Cathcart announced a partnership with the Indian School of Public Policy — India’s first program in the theory and practice of public policy, product design and management — to bring a series of privacy design workshops to future policy makers. These workshops will explore “the importance and practice of privacy-centric design to help technology make a positive impact on society,” the Facebook-owned platform said.