By April 22, 2014, WhatsApp had over 500 million monthly active users, 700 million photos and 100 million videos were being shared daily, and the messaging system was handling more than 10 billion messages each day. When this multi-device feature was first introduced to Android and iOS users, it could only show messages for the last three months on the Web version, because the Web version was syncing with the phone. Similar to voice messages, this feature allows users to record and send short videos directly in a chat. This allows users to send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption. In May 2017, it was reported that WhatsApp users spend over 340 million minutes on video calls each day on the app. In May 2016, some WhatsApp users were reported to have been tricked into downloading a third-party application called WhatsApp Gold, which was part of a scam that infected the users’ phones with malware.
According to Globes, already by 2013 the application was installed on 92% of all smartphones, with 86% of users reporting daily use. In May 2025, Meta reported WhatsApp had over 3 billion monthly active users globally. On August 24, 2014, Koum announced on his Twitter account that WhatsApp had over 600 million active users worldwide. The hack, allegedly developed by Israeli surveillance technology firm NSO Group, injected malware onto WhatsApp users’ phones via a remote-exploit bug in the app’s Voice over IP calling functions. An integer overflow bug allowed a malicious user to take full control of the victim’s application once a video call between two WhatsApp users was established. There were a series of incidents between 2017 and 2020, after which WhatsApp announced changes for Indian users of the platform that labels forwarded messages as such.
- In November 2019, WhatsApp released a new privacy feature that let users decide who can add them to groups.
- Previously the Android and Nokia Series 40 versions used an MD5-hashed, reversed-version of the phone’s IMEI as a password, while the iOS version used the phone’s Wi-Fi MAC address instead of the IMEI.
- Similar to voice messages, this feature allows users to record and send short videos directly in a chat.Start your crypto journey with a simple registration and global access token tact site.
- In April 2015, Forbes predicted that between 2012 and 2018, the telecommunications industry would lose $386 billion because of “over-the-top” services like WhatsApp and Skype.
- In July 2025, WhatsApp stopped developing the Windows UWP-based app due to poor support and deprecation of the UWP framework by Microsoft.
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In November 2023, WhatsApp added a “voice chat” feature for groups with more than 32 members. Later in September 2018, WhatsApp introduced group audio and video call features. According to the company, messages could be edited within a 15-minute window after being sent. In 2022, WhatsApp added the ability for users to turn off their online status.
Dual App – Duo Web Scanner
In August 2021, WhatsApp launched a feature that allows chat history to be transferred between mobile operating systems. Previously between March 2016 and May 2017, only limited file types categorised as images (JPG, PNG, GIF), videos (MP4, AVI), and documents (CSV, DOC/DOCX, PDF, PPT/PPTX, RTF, TXT, XLS/XLSX), were allowed to be shared for file attachments. In July 2017, WhatsApp added support for file uploads of all file types, with a limit of 100 MB. Voice messages sent this way are deleted after the recipient listens to them the first time. Unlike their 32-person group calls, starting a voice chat does not call all group members directly; they instead receive a notification to join the voice chat.
Brazil
In December 2019, WhatsApp announced that a new update would lock out any Apple users who had not updated to iOS 9 or higher and Samsung, Huawei, Sony and Google users who had not updated to version 4.0 by February 1, 2020. In August 2014, WhatsApp was the most popular messaging app in the world, with more than 600 million users. In May 2014, WhatsApp crossed 50 million monthly active users in India, which is also its largest country by the number of monthly active users, then 70 million in October 2014, making users in India 10% of WhatsApp’s total user base. By February 2017, WhatsApp had over 1.2 billion users globally, reaching 1.5 billion monthly active users by the end of 2017. At that point WhatsApp was adding about 25 million new users every month, or 833,000 active users per day. In October 2020, Facebook announced the introduction of pricing tiers for services offered via the WhatsApp Business API, charged on a per-conversation basis.
In November 2019, WhatsApp released a new privacy feature that let users decide who can add them to groups. The feature has to be turned on by the user and provides the option to encrypt the backup either with a password or a 64-digit encryption key. They expressed the concern that regular WhatsApp users still could not tell the difference between end-to-end encrypted messages and regular messages. WhatsApp uses a “store and forward” mechanism for exchanging messages between two users.
In October 2024, WhatsApp expanded their chat filter feature, adding the ability for users to create custom lists that contain specific chats of their choice. In October 2020, WhatsApp rolled out a feature allowing users to mute both individuals and group chats forever. Local users can text special numbers in the app to launch an in-app shopping process, where they can order groceries.
Filled with scammers, not a secure app
In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client. Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. The developer, WhatsApp Inc., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below.
About this app
At the time, it was the largest acquisition of a venture-capital-backed company in history. On February 19, 2014, one year after the venture capital financing round at a $1.5 billion valuation, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) agreed to acquire the company for US$19 billion, its largest acquisition to date. That year, the company had $148 million in expenses and a net loss of $138 million. In April 2011, Sequoia Capital invested about $8 million for more than 15% of the company, after months of negotiation by Sequoia partner Jim Goetz. Koum then hired a friend in Los Angeles, Chris Peiffer, to develop a BlackBerry version, which arrived two months later.
He also said that new mobile phones would be sold in Germany with the WhatsApp brand, and that their ultimate goal was to be on all smartphones. Three days after announcing the Facebook purchase, Koum said they were working to introduce voice calls. Sequoia Capital received an approximate 5,000% return on its initial investment.
Although Acton was working on another startup idea, he decided to join the company. Koum updated WhatsApp so that everyone in the user’s network would be notified when a user’s status changed. However, when early versions of WhatsApp kept crashing, Koum considered giving up and looking for a new job. Koum named the app WhatsApp to sound like “what’s up” and it was published on the Apple App Store and BlackBerry App World in May and June 2009 respectively. A month earlier, after Koum purchased an iPhone, he and Acton decided to create an app for the App Store.
Previously the Android and Nokia Series 40 versions used an MD5-hashed, reversed-version of the phone’s IMEI as a password, while the iOS version used the phone’s Wi-Fi MAC address instead of the IMEI. WhatsApp uses a customized version of the open standard Extensible messaging and presence protocol (XMPP). In July 2025, WhatsApp stopped developing the Windows UWP-based app due to poor support and deprecation of the UWP framework by Microsoft. In 2023, WhatsApp replaced the Electron-based apps with native versions for their respective platforms. Similar to the WhatsApp Web format, the app, which synchronises with a user’s mobile device, is available for download on the website. Previously the WhatsApp user’s handset had to be connected to the Internet for the browser application to function but as of an update in October 2021 (and integrated by default in WhatsApp as of April 2022) that is no longer the case.
By early January 2015, WhatsApp had 700 million monthly users and over 30 billion messages every day. Days after the announcement, WhatsApp users experienced a loss of service, leading to anger across social media. Some time in 2013 WhatsApp acquired Santa Clara–based startup SkyMobius, the developers of Vtok, a video and voice calling app. By February 2013, WhatsApp had about 200 million active users and 50 staff members. To cover the cost of sending verification texts to users, WhatsApp was changed from a free service to a paid one.
A message that promises to allow access to their WhatsApp friends’ conversations, or their contact lists, has become the most popular hit against anyone who uses the application in Brazil. In April 2017, nearly 300 WhatsApp groups with about 250 members each were reportedly being used to mobilize stone-pelters in Jammu and Kashmir to disrupt security forces’ operations at encounter sites. The messages involved discussing how to make an explosive device and a confession to the attack.
The organization reported a massive drop-off in traffic for the blocked services, though the country’s government made no official statements about the block. In December 2021, the Swiss army banned the use of WhatsApp and several other non-Swiss encrypted messaging services by army personnel. In April 2017, vegas casino app the perpetrator of the Stockholm truck attack reportedly used WhatsApp to exchange messages with an ISIS supporter shortly before and after the incident. Rudd publicly called for police and intelligence agencies to be given access to WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services to prevent future terror attacks. However, the company did not reveal the names of the end users, which according to research by Citizen Lab include, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. In March 2019, WhatsApp released a guide for users who had installed unofficial modified versions of WhatsApp and warned that it may ban those using unofficial clients.
App Functionality
Visual effects also became available, adding visual filters to a user’s video feed. In December 2024, WhatsApp introduced several new video calling features, including the ability to select specific participants from a group to make a call, rather than calling all group members. In June 2024, improvements were made to voice and video calls, allowing up to 32 participants in video calls, adding audio to screen sharing, and introducing a new codec to increase call reliability.
- Unlike messages in groups or private chats, channels are not end-to-end encrypted.
- Currently, WhatsApp’s principal platforms, which are fully supported, are devices supporting mobile telephony running Android, and iPhones.
- In May 2016, some WhatsApp users were reported to have been tricked into downloading a third-party application called WhatsApp Gold, which was part of a scam that infected the users’ phones with malware.
- When this multi-device feature was first introduced to Android and iOS users, it could only show messages for the last three months on the Web version, because the Web version was syncing with the phone.
- In its revelation via documents received from court, the group claimed that the lawsuit brought against the company by WhatsApp threatened to infringe on its clients’ “national security and foreign policy concerns”.
Previously, users could opt-out of such data sharing, but the new policy removed this option. In January 2021, WhatsApp announced an updated privacy policy which stated that WhatsApp would share user data with Facebook and its “family of companies” beginning February 2021. When a user deletes media for everyone, WhatsApp does not delete images saved in the iOS camera roll and so those users are able to keep the images. WhatsApp was criticized by security researchers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for using backups that are not covered by end-to-end encryption and allow messages to be accessed by third-parties. In November 2020, UPI payments via WhatsApp were initially restricted to 20 million users, and to 100 million users in April 2022, and became generally available to everyone in August 2022.
Voice calls between two accounts were added to the app in March and April 2015. Edited messages were tagged as “edited” to inform recipients that the content had been modified. In October 2018, the “Swipe to Reply” option was added to the Android beta version, 16 months after it was introduced for iOS. In December 2021, WhatsApp changed the default setting from “everyone” to only people in the user’s contacts or who have been conversed with (“nobody” is also an option).