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Huge Messaging App WhatsApp Adds 30 Million Active Users In A Month, Promises Not To Become A Snapchat Killer

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Our jaws dropped in December, when messaging app WhatsApp announced that it had 400 million monthly active users.

After all, that's almost double the number of active users of Twitter, which went public with about 230 million active users this fall. 

Now, though, WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum dropped the fact that the app has already shot to 430 million active users in only a month, TechCrunch reports.  

Snapchat, by comparison, had about 30 million monthly active users in December. 

Koum, speaking at the DLD Conference in Germany, also said users send and receive a whopping 50 billion messages through WhatsApp daily. 

He made another bold statement, too: Koum promised that WhatsApp will continue to stay away from "gimmicks" like disappearing photos and games. WhatsApp won't try to be a Snapchat killer anytime soon. 

WhatsApp makes money by charging users $.99 per year to use the app after the first year. 

 

 

 

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Jillian was most recently an enterprise technology editor based in San Francisco.  She started at Insider as an intern on the technology desk in 2013 and rose to a senior reporter position, covering Alphabet, Facebook, and ecommerce. After three years at the site, she left to spend time freelance writing abroad, before taking reporting positions at CNBC and then at Forbes, where she covered Alphabet, Silicon Valley culture, and artificial intelligence. She returned to Insider in March 2020 and worked on the enterprise technology desk until August 2021.  Jillian graduated from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications with a degree in magazine journalism and information management and technology.