WhatsApp Messenger foriOS devicesis now free. With this, the app now has the same subscription model as can be seen in theAndroid and Windows Phone versions, with thefirst year being free for new users and maintaining subscriptions forsubsequentyears costing$1 per year. However, those who have already bought theapp need not worry about thesubscription, since they already have a lifetime subscription to theservice at no extra charge.
This move hasn't been a surprise. WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum had talked about bringing thesubscription model to theiOS version of theapp in an interview with Dutch journalistAlexander Klopping back in March. This is undoubtedly in an attempt to widen the potential audience forWhatsApp. For many, even the low price tag of WhatsApp (Rs 55) was too much forsomething they just wanted to try out. However, it is worth notingthat even back when it was a paid app, it was still on thetop 10 paid apps list on theiTunes App Store.
WhatsApp is undoubtedly an extremely popular messaging service. Just last month, thecompany had revealed that themessaging service had crossed the250 millionuser base milestone . This gives WhatsApp a lead of 50 million users over Twitter, a service that boasted of 200 millionusers at last count. The four-year-old cross-platform messaging service has left thelikes of Viber, Nimbuzz and WeChat behindand is now runningneck-in-neck with the likes of Microsoft’s Skype and Facebook Messenger.
The service, which usually processesabout 18 billion inboundand 12 billion outbound messagesa day, had
seen a spike in activity where it claims that it processed a whopping27 billion inbound17 billion outbound messagesin a 24 hour period. WhatsApp did not specify thedetails of whenthe figures were collected. Messenger foriOS devicesis now free. With this, theapp now has the same subscription model as can be seen in theAndroid and Windows Phone versions, with thefirst year being free for new users and maintaining subscriptions forsubsequentyears costing$1 per year. However, those who have already bought theapp need not worry about thesubscription, since they already have a lifetime subscription to theservice at no extra charge.
This move hasn't been a surprise. WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum had talked about bringing thesubscription model to theiOS version of theapp in an interview with Dutch journalistAlexander Klopping back in March. This is undoubtedly in an attempt to widen the potential audience forWhatsApp. For many, even the low price tag of WhatsApp (Rs 55) was too much forsomething they just wanted to try out. However, it is worth notingthat even back when it was a paid app, it was still on thetop 10 paid apps list on theiTunes App Store.
WhatsApp is undoubtedly an extremely popular messaging service. Just last month, thecompany had revealed that themessaging service had crossed the250 millionuser base milestone . This gives WhatsApp a lead of 50 million users over Twitter, a service that boasted of 200 millionusers at last count. The four-year-old cross-platform messaging service has left thelikes of Viber, Nimbuzz and WeChat behindand is now runningneck-in-neck with the likes of Microsoft’s Skype and Facebook Messenger.
The service, which usually processesabout 18 billion inboundand 12 billion outbound messagesa day, had
seen a spike in activity where it claims that it processed a whopping27 billion inbound17 billion outbound messagesin a 24 hour period. WhatsApp did not specify thedetails of whenthe figures were collected.
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