WhatsApp now has a billion monthly active users (and so does Gmail)

It wasn’t all that long ago – March 2015 in fact – that WhatsApp crossed the one billion install threshold on Google Play. Fast forward 10 months to now and the world’s most popular messaging service has just announced it has one billion monthly active users. Installs are one thing, but active users are the holy grail for demonstrating popularity.

Speaking of popularity, Alphabet also announced it has one billion active monthly users of its Gmail service at the exact same time as WhatsApp. If you want to get competitive about it, Alphabet’s earnings call actually dropped the news first, with WhatsApp’s post appearing a few moments later. Needless to say, both services deserve a pat on the back.

If you want to continue the competitive angle, Gmail hit the billion installs mark in May 2014, that’s 20 months ago, or double the amount of time it took WhatsApp to convert downloads into monthly active users. It sometimes feels like everyone is using Gmail and WhatsApp, but this rapid uptake shows there is still plenty of room for growth, even when a seventh of the world’s population is already using your product on the regular.