In 2014, when the messaging app had 450 million active users, Facebook’s $19 billion bet on WhatsApp really began to pay off. According to industry estimates, WhatsApp has surpassed Facebook's own popular apps in recent months.
Research firm App Annie said in its annual "mobile status" report today that in September last year, WhatsApp first exceeded the Facebook's same-named application on Android and iPhone platforms. App Annie didn't share specific data but told VentureBeat that WhatsApp has been a leading Facebook app since September.
According to App Annie, the Facebook app is the top app in 2018, and the global users are the most active (if we average every month). But in several markets - including India, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Switzerland, Spain, Singapore, Russia, the Netherlands, Mexico, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Germany, Finland, and Brazil - it even acknowledged the failure of WhatsApp in this regard. Interestingly, in the United States, Facebook and Messenger apps dominate the top spot, while WhatsApp does not enter the top 10.
A WhatsApp spokesperson declined to comment on App Annie's findings and said the messaging app is not currently sharing any new data.
How many users does WhatsApp have?
The number of users who are unwilling to share WhatsApp is in stark contrast to the early days of the app when it once boasted about its user base growth every few months. As messaging applications face pressure to spread false information and other suspicious content, Facebook seems increasingly reluctant to share the growth story of WhatsApp.
In the earnings conference call for the third quarter of 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not break through the active user base of WhatsApp, sharing only the overall coverage of all Facebook apps.
“Now there are more than 2.6 billion people using Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram or Messenger each month, compared to about 2.5 billion in the last quarter. But now, on average, more than 2 billion people use our services every day,” he said.
In fact, any data that Facebook shared about WhatsApp last time was during the fourth quarter 2017 earnings call in January 2018. At the time, Zuckerberg said that WhatsApp had 1.5 billion active users per month. It's worth noting that for the first time in a few years, WhatsApp didn't share much of the news that was exchanged through its app on New Year's Eve this month. (On the other hand, WhatsApp hasn't shared the latest news about how many people have used their apps in their largest market in India for more than a year and a half.)
App Annie's data is somewhat consistent with Apptopia's estimates. According to a research company that released a global application download report last month, WhatsApp has more downloads than the 2018 Facebook app.
VentureBeat contacted another research company, SensorTower, which tracks application downloads. According to SensorTower, WhatsApp is indeed the most downloaded app in other Facebook-owned apps last year.
Above: Data: SensorTower
WhatsApp's exponential growth in recent years has given Facebook a unique challenge, and Facebook has earned most of its revenue through sales advertising. WhatsApp still has no ads. Last year, the company launched the WhatsApp version for business users, but the application was slow to adopt, so it's unclear how much Facebook is making (if any).
However, WhatsApp has lost the founder and an executive who played an important role in convincing them to sell the app to Facebook and began to explore monetization opportunities in the app, which is only a matter of time. At Facebook's quarterly earnings conference call later this month, many people want to be able to update.
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