A completely free service is what now offers Whatsapp to all of its worldwide users. Jan Koum, founder of the platform which is property of Facebook since 2014, announced on January 19th that they have eliminated the payment request for using Whatsapp.
As you may know, Whatsapp gives every user a free year of full communication service just by doing an easy registration process from a mobile phone number. After the first year, clients could not use the platform without giving a pay of US$ 0,99 annually. Since the announcement, there will be no charges for the service from users going forwards.
The decision comes in order to increase the number of users in a platform that already has more than 900 million of people; according to Koum. who gave the announcement at DLD conference in Munich, Germany.
Also, the spokesperson discarded including ads in the app as a way to monetize through it. Koum said the company is exploring different ways to let clients communicate with businesses, but there is not a permanent decision about it since Whatsapp developers even haven’t thought in a new code to include in the app to make this process easier.
On May 2014, India was the largest single country in terms of number of users enjoying Whatsapp with 70 million active users, close to 10% of the total worldwide clients. Another interesting fact is users around the world share more than 700 million images and 100 million videos daily in this platform which turned into an almost mandatory app to download for every person who wants to be connected with its loved ones, workmates, business clients and more.
The company was founded in 2009 by Ukrainian Jan Koum and American Brian Acton, and was bought by Facebook two years ago for USD 19 billion.
