WhatsApp Messenger is a global success story with over 700 million active monthly users it is the most used instant messaging app worldwide irrespective of mobile platform. The prominent mobile messenger enjoys a particularly strong reach in in the United States and is even more popular in markets other than the US.
Facebook acquired this app for US$19 billion during February 2014. The app can ascribe its popularity to several factors that include options like its easy signup, its VoIP voice call capability, an option to backup all app information to cloud, it eliminates any requirement for an additional texting plan, easy and simple device migration, and fully customisable chat windows. No app is perfect however the app lacks desktop functionality, a relatively inelegant design, no video chat facility, and it is linked to a single phone number and device at a time this last feature however is also a positive as it lends itself towards additional security. In addition, any new subscribers will find their complete contact list with persons already on WhatsApp fully loaded within seconds after the completion of signing up. Any newby to WhatsApp will find they already have a multitude of the friends subscribe to the brilliant app, which to a great extent would negate any further needs for additional mobile texting plans.
The app however faces stiff competition since mobile messaging exploded in recent years, with all kinds of apps available for every kind of messaging imaginable from sultry, to public, to secret, to subversive. Due to the explosion in IMs mobile industry leaders like Facebook and Twitter jumped on improving their offering, with the owners of WhatsApp Facebook’s Messenger currently featured in second place behind their own Whatsapp in the popularity stakes globally.