Imagine a world without WhatsApp. It’s a fact that it would be hard to do that in our technology-driven society. If you own a smartphone, you’ve probably used WhatsApp to send someone a message, voice note, audio clip, animated GIF or video clip.
There’s probably a lot that you don’t know about this popular Instant Messaging service, so I thought that I would undertake the task of informing you about it.
Here are 26 facts that you might not have known about WhatsApp
1. WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum (former employees of Yahoo!).
2. The company did not spend a penny on marketing and user acquisition. They invested it in development instead.
3. The instant messaging service had 250,000 active users by June 2009. By December 2013 that number had gone up to 400 million.
4. The company turned down a $10 billion offer from Google, but they eventually accepted a $19 billion offer from Facebook in February 2014.
5. The messaging service is blocked in China, North Korea and Russia, with voice and video calls restricted in places like the UAE and Qatar.
6. Meta announced that WhatsApp crossed 3 billion monthly active users in March 2025, and daily users are above 2 billion, per Zuckerberg’s January 2026 earnings call.
7. As of June 2021, India had the most WhatsApp users in the world, with 487.5 million monthly active users. That’s about one third of India’s population. This is more than the combined user base of the next two countries, Brazil and Indonesia.
8. According to 2025 Estimates, more than 100 billion messages are sent on WhatsApp per day (that’s 69 million every minute of the day).
9. Two billion minutes are spent making voice and video calls per day on the app.
10. Around 55 million video calls are made on the app every day.
11. It’s the the most widely used messaging app on the planet, with more monthly users than any of its rivals.
12. More than 1 million new users register to use the app daily.
13. The average user checks the app more than 23 times per day.
14. According to January 2024 statistics, there are 98 million WhatsApp users in the United States. Around 23% of adults use the application, or roughly one in every four adults. WhatsApp is currently the fourth most downloaded mobile app in the US.
15. The company has 55 employees and 50 engineers. They still don’t employ any marketing or PR staff.
16. The app was originally developed for iOS. It eventually became available to Android users in 2010.
17. The Android version of the app supports 60 languages.
18. When Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014, the $19 billion price tag valued the tiny company above established names like Harley Davidson and American Airlines.
19. On Android, the average user spends roughly 59 minutes a day on WhatsApp.
20. It’s South Africa’s leading messaging platform, used by about 94% of the country’s internet users according to 2025 DataReportal figures.
21. WhatsApp has more than 2 billion daily active users, as Mark Zuckerberg confirmed on Meta’s January 2026 earnings call.
22. WhatsApp Business launched in 2018, and Meta reported more than 200 million monthly active businesses on it in 2023.
23. Before co-founding the company, Brian Acton was turned down for jobs at both Twitter and Facebook. Facebook later bought his company for $19 billion.
24. WhatsApp wasn’t always free. It briefly charged users to cover the cost of sending verification texts.
25. Koum and Acton’s motto for the app was “No Ads. No Games. No Gimmicks.”
26. Jan Koum signed the Facebook deal at a disused welfare office where he had once queued for food stamps.
Well, there you have it, 26 facts that you might not have known about WhatsApp. I trust that you found this information useful. If you have, feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.
Watch this space for regular updates in the Facts category on Interesting Facts.
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2 Comments
Wow, I had no idea WhatsApp had such a rich history! I’m definitely going to share some of these fun facts with my friends. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed the article 🙂 Thanks for sharing 🙂