WhatsApp Hits Three Billion Monthly Users Amid Meta’s Expanding AI Push
By Abbas Badmus
WhatsApp has officially crossed the 3 billion monthly active user mark, joining an elite group of apps to achieve the milestone, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced during the company’s Q1 2025 earnings call on Wednesday.
This achievement places the messaging app alongside its sibling platform, Facebook, as one of the few services worldwide to surpass the 3 billion user threshold.
Founded in 2009 and acquired by Meta (then Facebook) in 2014 for $19 billion, WhatsApp has seen consistent growth without relying on ads or subscription models. After hitting 2 billion monthly users in 2020, it has added another billion in just four years, reaffirming its dominance in global digital communication.
The platform’s expanding user base is playing an increasingly critical role in Meta’s broader strategy, especially as the company pivots towards artificial intelligence.
Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li revealed that WhatsApp has become the most active platform for Meta AI tools. “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,” she said, noting that most interactions are through one-on-one chats.
However, Zuckerberg acknowledged that U.S. adoption of WhatsApp remains comparatively low due to user reliance on default SMS apps. In response, Meta recently introduced a standalone Meta AI app tailored for American users, aiming to establish it as a go-to personal AI assistant.
“We’re in a different position in the U.S. than we are in most of the rest of the world on WhatsApp,” Zuckerberg said. “So I think that the Meta AI app as a standalone is going to be particularly important… as the main personal AI that people use.”
Beyond consumer engagement, WhatsApp is also advancing Meta’s commercial goals. The app’s business-oriented service, WhatsApp Business, significantly contributed to Meta’s $510 million in revenue from its Family of Apps in Q1. The company is now embedding AI tools into the platform, including a new dashboard that enables businesses to train Meta AI using their own data from websites and social media profiles.
Additionally, Meta is testing AI-powered chatbots for automated customer service on WhatsApp, further enhancing its value proposition to businesses.
Overall, Meta’s Q1 2025 earnings report showed robust growth. The Family of Apps—which includes Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads—recorded an average of 3.43 billion daily active users, marking a 6% increase year-over-year. Ad impressions rose by 5%, while the average price per ad jumped by 10%.
The tech giant reported a total revenue of $42.31 billion for the quarter, reflecting a 16% increase compared to the same period last year.
