WhatsApp has officially joined the exclusive group of apps with over 3 billion monthly active users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced during the company’s Q1 2025 earnings call on Wednesday. This milestone places WhatsApp alongside Facebook, also owned by Meta, as one of the few platforms in the world to achieve this level of global usage.
Launched in 2009 and acquired by Meta (then Facebook) in 2014 for $19 billion, WhatsApp has maintained steady growth without relying on advertisements or subscription fees. The app reached 2 billion monthly users in 2020 and has since added another billion in just four years, reinforcing its position as the world’s dominant messaging platform.
The app’s growing user base is playing a critical role in Meta’s ongoing push into artificial intelligence. According to Susan Li, Meta CFO WhatsApp is now the most active platform for Meta’s AI tools. Most interactions with Meta AI occur through one-on-one chats on WhatsApp, she said.
“We see people engage with Meta AI from several different entry points. WhatsApp continues to see the strongest Meta AI usage across our family of apps,” Li explained.
Zuckerberg added that while WhatsApp serves as a major access point for Meta AI globally, its adoption in the U.S. remains limited due to the popularity of default SMS apps. To address this, Meta recently launched a standalone Meta AI app aimed at U.S. users, promoting it as a go-to personal AI assistant.
“We’re in a different position in the U.S. than in most of the rest of the world on WhatsApp,” Zuckerberg noted. “So I think the Meta AI app as a standalone is going to be particularly important as the main personal AI that people use.”
WhatsApp is also becoming central to Meta’s business strategy. Its commercial offering, WhatsApp Business, contributed significantly to the company’s $510 million in Q1 revenue from business tools across its platforms. Meta is now integrating AI into WhatsApp Business, including a dashboard that allows companies to train Meta AI using their own digital content—from websites to social media profiles.
Additionally, Meta is testing AI-powered chatbots on WhatsApp Business to help automate customer service interactions.
Meta’s Q1 2025 Financial Highlights
Meta reported that its “Family of Apps”—including Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads—averaged 3.43 billion daily active users in Q1, a 6 per cent increase year-over-year.
Ad impressions across the apps grew by 5 per cent, while the average price per ad rose by 10 per cent year-over-year. Overall, Meta posted Q1 revenue of $42.31 billion, representing a 16 per cent increase compared to the same period last year.
