Sources What is WhatsApp & How Does It Work?Īpart from Facebook and Instagram, WhatsApp is Meta’s biggest platform. The platform is also the most used messaging app in over 100 countries. The geographic region with the highest number of WhatsApp users is India. While many might believe that the United States is the region with the most WhatsApp users, they would be wrong. Īs of April 2022, WhatsApp boasted 2.26 billion global users. It amassed 450 million users by the time Facebook, now Meta Platforms, bought the company in 2014 for $21.8 billion. Free messaging was preferable to many cell phone users over costly or geographically limited SMS messaging. WhatsApp makes money via an enterprise version of WhatsApp called WhatsApp Business, used by companies for sales and support, and WhatsApp Payment, a way to send money to other users that charges the receiver a fee.įounded in 2009 by Jan Koum and Brian Acton, the messenger service promised users free domestic and international messaging over the internet. So, if the service is free, how exactly does WhatsApp make money for Facebook, it’s parent company? Turns out that the platform has two main sources of revenue. WhatsApp is a popular free messaging app.