WhatsApp just shared some BIG news

ONE in seven people on the planet now use WhatsApp to keep in touch with their friends, the Facebook-owned company has confirmed.

 

WhatsApp is now used by one in ever seven people on the planet, Facebook has confirmed

 

It's official. 

WhatsApp – already the world's most popular messaging app – has now topped one billion active users.

Thanks to its phenomenal success, WhatsApp now has to handle a staggering 42 billion messages and 250 million videos sent across the globe, every day of the week.

With that amount of data being shared – it's little surprise the service went down over New Years.

Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19billion, some £11.5 million converted, back in 2014. At the time the service had just 450 million active users.

The US social network, recently accused of draining performance on Android smartphones, also owns the second most successful mobile messaging app – its own Facebook Messenger.

 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news on the social network, "One billion people now use WhatsApp.

"WhatsApp's community has more than doubled since joining Facebook. We've added the ability for you to call loved ones far away.

"We've dropped the subscription fee and made WhatsApp completely free.

 

WhatsApp allows users to send text, video, audio – and even make calls – for free

"Next, we're going to work to connect more people around the world and make it easier to communicate with businesses.

"There are only a few services that connect more than a billion people. This milestone is an important step towards connecting the entire world."

WhatsApp recently confirmed it would drop the annual 69p subscription fee because, according to its co-founder Jan Koum, the business model "really doesn’t work for some people".

The cross-platform messenger was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, both former employees of Yahoo!