WhatsApp subscribers top 500 million worldwide

WhatsApp, the over-the-top (OTT) messaging service, has announced that it now has over 500 million active users.

In a short statement, the company said that in the last few months, it has grown fastest in countries like Brazil, India, Mexico, and Russia, and users are also sharing more than 700 million photos and 100 million videos every single day.

The OTT platform was founded only in February 2009, and had signed up 200 million users by February 2013. A little more than a year later, it has more than doubled to 500 million users.

It recently agreed to a takeover bid from Facebook that valued the company at US$19 billion, despite offering most of its services for free, or at most, a nominal charge of just US$1 per year.