WhatsApp hits half a billion users ahead of voice roll out

 WhatsApp has announced that half a billion consumers are now actively using its OTT messaging service.           
The news comes just over two months after Facebook acquired the company for around €14 billion.

According to WhatsApp, its users are now sending 100 million videos and 700 million photos on average each day. In total, it handles up to 64 billion messages daily.

In the last few months, the company said it has grown fastest in countries like Brazil, India, Mexico, and Russia.WhatsApp is expected to launch a voice service later this year.

Surveys continue to report that instant messaging poses an increasing threat to operators’ SMS revenues.

In its Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions for 2014, Deloitte noted that, although text messaging currently generates more revenue that mobile instant messaging (MIM), the latter have more volume.

MIMs are expected to account for an average of 50 billion communications per day this year, compared to just 21 billion messages sent by SMS.

"In 2014 it is very likely that trillions of MIMs will be sent in place of a text message," states the Deloitte report.

"But it is also very likely that, billions of times a day, MIMs will also be sent instead of e-mail, tweets or other forms of communication such as phone and video calls."


Culled from eurocomms