The most popular messaging service in the world, Whatsapp, fail to charge the annual subscription rate of $ 1 to be paid by users for use. The news was delivered this Monday (18/01/2016) by the chief executive of the company, Jan Koum. Profits from the sale of the firm to the giant of social networking, Facebook, allow you to keep this measure in time, as is clear from the words of Koum.
“Today we are announcing that WhatsApp will be free for users. We will not charge more than a dollar a year, “the businessman told an audience of entrepreneurs and investors in the Digital Life Design conference in Munich, Germany. “The acquisition (by Facebook) allowed us to focus on growing and not think about making money,” said co-founder Whatsapp. The application also remain free of advertising.
Instead, Whatsapp begin this year to find ways to simplify how businesses interact with consumers. “When we think of our philosophy to build something utilitarian, we experience the same with companies,” Koum said, without elaborating. However, that’s one of the strengths of Facebook Messenger, the second messaging service Facebook, with 800 million users.
Maintains independence
Whatsapp, a company founded seven years ago, it was acquired by Facebook for 19,200 million in 2014 and has almost 1,000 million users, almost double than it had before being bought by the network created by Mark Zuckerberg. The operation allowed the popular “app” infrastructure access the largest social network in the world and implement, for example, the option of voice chat, a step without Facebook, would have demanded a significant investment itself.
Two years ago, the executive explained that charging a subscription was how to ensure the independence of WhatsApp. Weeks later it was announced the purchase by Facebook, with consequent capital available in the hands of Koum and his company. Nevertheless, Koum said his firm has managed to maintain its independence within the group Facebook. Software development, for example, still occurs on its own platform.
DZC (Reuters, dpa)
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