Who Owns WhatsApp? A History of the Most Popular Messaging App in the World

All you need is a compatible smartphone and a phone number to use it.

How Was WhatsApp Founded?

WhatsApp was founded by formerYahoo!employees Brian Acton and Jan Koum in 2009.

By February 2013, it had around 200 million active users and was valued at $1.5 billion.

By the end of 2013, it had reached 400 million active users.

Originally a text messaging-only service, voice messaging was added in 2013, and voice calls in 2015.

Video calls were added in late 2016, with group calls introduced in 2018.

Facebook acquired WhatsApp in February 2014 for $19 billion.

It became one of a string of Facebook-owned apps that also includes major photo-sharing social networking app,Instagram.

In April 2018, Jan Koum left WhatsApp and became a philanthropist supporting numerous charitable causes.

WhatsApp has continued to add features since its co-founders left Facebook.

Facebook announced in an October 2020 financial conference call that100 billion WhatsApp messages were sent every dayacross the world.

That’s the equivalent of 69 million messages every minute.

Alongside that, around 2 billion minutes are spent making WhatsApp voice and video calls each day.

Technically, WhatsApp doesn’t make any money.

It hasn’t done so since removing its subscription fee.

Click to WhatsApp ads on Facebook redirect users from Facebook to WhatsApp and can be beneficial for companies.

In all cases, though, WhatsApp offersend-to-end encryptionso that no information can be gleaned from your messages.