In four years, WhatsApp has grown from a small startup to one of the largest messaging platforms in the world. According to The Wall Street Journal, WhatsApp now has more than 250 million active users. In comparison, Twitter has more than 200 million monthly active users, while Microsoft’s Skype service has 280 million. The company also revealed earlier this month that its users recently sent and received 27 billion messages in 24 hours. Analyst Chetan Sharma noted that in the past 12 months, WhatsApp handled more messages than all U.S. wireless carriers combined. Sharma also said that the same is true for all carriers in China, which is the world’s largest mobile market. The company must prepare for new challenges, however.
BlackBerry Messenger is set to arrive on the iPhone and Android smartphones later this year. BBM remains popular with a user base of 60 million who send more than 10 billion messages per day. BlackBerry founder and former co-CEO Mike Lazaridis previously said that he believes users will flock to BBM from WhatsApp and iMessage because it is a superior service.
