WhatsApp hits 700 million users

WhatsApp now has 700 million monthly active users, and those users are sending 30 billion messages per day, according to Jan Koum, WhatsApp CEO.

In comparison, Twitter has approximately 284 million users and Instagram hit 300 million last month. Facebook continues to lead the pack, however, with 1.3 billion users.

Last year Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion. Since then the app has welcomed 200 million new users.

Following the acquisition, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, said, " Over a five year timewe have a number of services which we think are well on their way to reaching 1 billion people: WhatsApp, Instagram and search are a number of them. And once we get to that scale, then we think they will start to become meaningful businesses in their own right.

It hasn't been announced how many of the 700 million users are paying customers or whether the messaging service has met Facebook's expectations.

In a statement on his Facebook page, Koum says, "As humbled and excited as we are by these numbers and our continued growth, we're even more excited to keep building a great product in 2015.

"Most of all, we're grateful that so many of you are using WhatsApp to stay in touch with your friends and family, business colleagues and classmates. We promise to continue working hard to make WhatsApp even better," he says.

This year could see WhatsApp launching a voice calling function which employs the speed and efficency of text messaging, as well as other developments.