WhatsApp turns 15 today: having become the most popular communication tool in the world, it has over 2 billion users. The messaging application was created on February 24, 2009 by two former Yahoo employees, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, and in 2014 became part of Meta, acquired by Mark Zuckerberg for around $19 billion. According to the latest IAB Spain Social Networking Study (2023), WhatsApp continues to be the most popular application of its kind, used most frequently and most intensely, and the most transversal, being the favorite of the millennial, zeta and alpha generations. According to the Statista website, WhatsApp’s 2 billion users worldwide surpass rivals such as China’s WeChat (1.336 billion), Facebook Messenger (979 million) or Telegram (800 million). The app has incorporated increasingly complex innovations: from video calls or voice notes, to the ability to create groups and now even leave them without all members knowing.
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The most recent innovation is the ability to edit messages already sent. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already made its way into the new features, although given its private nature, it is not yet available to all members. Users can use the technology to generate images and chat with an assistant within “limits”. “AIs can read what is sent to them, but your personal messages remain encrypted from start to finish, so no one, including Meta, can see them,” the company says on its website, adding that it will make the technology available of developers and companies. Since 2018, the app has offered the WhatsApp Business platform for business communication, with around 200 million users willing to pay cents for each conversation with their customers and which seems to be a solution to the profitability problem. Meta does not break down WhatsApp’s revenue, which according to some analysts is around 1% of the total, and prefers to refer to its “family of apps”, which includes Instagram and Facebook. According to Insider Intelligence data collected by CNBC, WhatsApp’s highest penetration by country is in Spain, Italy and Argentina, although other sites point to Brazil and India. However, it has not caught on in the United States, where the classic telephone text message is preferred.
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