WhatsApp has over 900 million monthly users

Facebook may have recently counted 1 billion unique users in a single day (which is pretty staggering when you think about it) but other services are also bringing in the numbers.

WhatsApp (which is also Facebook owned) just confirmed it reached 900 million users a month for the first time. That’s a huge number of chats going on all around the world, and a significant leap from the 800 million users reported in April 2015.

WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by former Yahoo folks Jan Koum and Brian Acton with the original app launching exclusively on iPhone via the then fledling app store. It was all about keeping in touch with your contact list by sending status updates and short messages, without having to use your regular text messages. It grew quickly, expanding its services to include photos and reaching 400 million users by 2013.

Facebook bought the company for $19 billion in Feburary 2014 and the growth has continued since then - 500 million in April 2014, 600 million by August. This latest milestone is a continued sign of that, despite competition from other services, including Facebook’s own messenger app.