WhatsApp bigger than Twitter, claims CEO

In March 2013, Twitter had announced it has more than 200 million active users sending over 400 million tweets every day. Though Koum did not share the exact number of WhatsApp users, after his statement, it is safe to assume it is more than 200 million. To illustrate his point, Koum also shared that the messaging app now handles over 20 billion messages per day. These messages constitute 8 billion inbound messages and 12 million outbound messages.

Koum also mentioned that the WhatsApp team had less than 50 engineers, which likely translates to the highest ratio of active users per long-term employee today for any active tech company today.

WhatsApp is a popular messaging app. As of now, this application is free to download on all platforms except iOS, where the app costs $0.99 (Rs. 55). For non-iOS platforms, the app is free to use for one year, after which it costs $0.99 per year. On iOS, the app is free to use for life after the initial download fee.

In the recent past, there have been news reports that suggest WhatsApp will be bracing subscription-based model for iOS as well by the end of 2013. The company has maintained over the period of time that it plans to steer clear of advertising on its platform and stressing the same Koum shared with AllThingD that, "There are plenty of successful businesses that don't use advertising. We want to be one of them."

"We do have a manifesto opposing advertising," Koum added. "We're proud of that. Who likes advertising? We're so bombarded with ads so much in our daily lives and we felt that smartphones aren't the place for that. Our phones are so intimately connected to us, to our lives. Putting advertising on a device like that is a bad idea. You don't want to be interrupted by ads when you're chatting with your loved ones."

In the last six months, there have been lot of speculations regarding Facebook and Google trying to acquire WhatsApp. The company so far has maintained that it is not in talks to sell the company.