It’s hard to believe, but WhatsApp just turned ten this week! Here is a look back at what’s happened to the platform since it was founded back in 2009.
In a blog post this week, WhatsApp gave us an overview of its 10-year history, looking back to celebrate all its milestones and biggest moments over the years. Of course, the journey isn’t over, and we all know that. Let’s take a look.
WhatsApp was incorporated on February 24 and launched as an app for iPhone and Android phones. In December of that year, the app launched photo and video sharing, and in June of the next year, location sharing was also added to the mix. Then, in February 2011, WhatsApp launched its Group Chat feature. In October 2011, there were 1 billion messages sent on the platform – two years later in August of 2013, voice messages were also launched.
2014 was a big year for WhatsApp. A few months after reaching 500 million users, in October of that year, WhatsApp was bought out by Facebook. A month later and the “read receipts” feature was launched. In January 2015, WhatsApp ceased to be just a mobile app, as WhatsApp Web became a reality – in May of 2016, the platform got a desktop app as well. In February of 2016, WhatsApp announced that it now had 1 billion people using it every month; That number became 1 billion people per day by July of 2017!
By then, the app had also got end-to-end encryption, video calling, and Status (a Stories clone). Then, in 2018, WhatsApp looked more towards businesses. As of January 2018, there are 1.5 billion users on the WhatsApp Business app! The last year also brought group calling and stickers!
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