Global messaging phenomenon WhatsApp this week announced a milestone 500 million users.
All over the world, people are sharing more than 700 million photos and 100 million videos every day, the company boasted in a Tuesday blog post. The most significant growth, however, comes from Brazil, India, Mexico, and Russia.
"We could go on, but for now, it's more important that we get back to work," the company said. "Because here at WhatsApp, we're just getting started."
While WhatsApp does not make clear how much those numbers grew since February's Facebook acquisition, Engadget points out that Brazil, India, and Mexico were among the top five countries with the largest Facebook user base in 2013, according to statistics firm Quintly.
The social media giant acquired WhatsApp in a $16 billion deal, promising to let the service run free as a separate offering, much like Instagram has since 2012.
"WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in February. "The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable."
The international app is now halfway there, and rapidly getting closer: Only four months ago, WhatsApp announced that it had reached the 400 million monthly active user mark, a milestone it said no other mobile messaging service had reached.
It hasn't always been smooth sailing since Facebook's purchase, though. Days after the announcement, WhatsApp suffered an outage. Last month, meanwhile, the service fought back against an Android vulnerability that allowed hackers to nab users' chat logs. WhatsApp called the issue "overstated." A few weeks later, another outage hit, just after the company reported record usage.
But in an effort to look forward, WhatsApp recently announced plans for the upcoming launch of voice messaging. CEO Jan Koum told a Mobile World Congress audience earlier this year that his company will add voice calls in the second quarter of 2014.
For more, see PCMag's review of WhatsApp Messenger for iPhone and the slideshow above. Also check out What Is WhatsApp? An Explainer.
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