WhatsApp hits 430M users, CEO reveals

ISLAMABAD ( MEDIA  )

Messaging app WhatsApp has reached 430 million monthly active users, according to the company’s CEO, who added that the focus will remain on providing a reliable service.

Jan Koum revealed the figure at the DLD conference in Munich, while also stating that the company now processes 18 billion inbound and 36 billion outbound messages each day.

WhatsApp  said in December that it had 400 million monthly active users, meaning the messaging service gained 30 million users in the space of a month.

The CEO reiterated his company’s commitment to avoid advertising: “Putting advertising in the way in the way of people trying to communicate and wanting to send direct messages to each other would be just so wrong in our mind.”

Koum also dismissed the possibility of WhatsApp becoming a social platform in a similar way to LINE or KakaoTalk.

“We just want to focus on messaging – to us there is a lot of coolness in having a pure and simple messaging and if people want to play games there are plenty of other sites and applications they can go to and play games,” Koum said.

“The important thing is focus. We’re focused on messaging. We’re not focused on being an advertising network or a gaming network, or a disappearing photo network,” he added.

The growing company’s priority is to provide a reliable service, according to Koum, with monetisation “something that we’ll look at in 2016, or 2018 or 2020 – it’s far, far down the road”.

And there appear to be no plans to cash-on in the success of WhatsApp with a multibillion dollar sale. “For us it’s always been about building a company that is here to stay, that is here for the next 10, 20, 50 years,” Koum said.