WhatsApp – The King of Social Apps
Making connections and maintaining them has become much easier with Social Messengers and that is probably the reason why WhatsApp has become the most used application on mobile devices with over 70 million active users. Much easier to use as compared to other social messenger applications, India has become the biggest market for WhatsApp. India accounts for 1/10th of the entire global users.
WhatsApp is known for its simple UI.
Its growth has made it apparent that it is has not been affected even after being taken over by Facebook and has maintained its own identity in the market, an example being it’s user base being more than double than its next best competitor, Hike Messenger. According to the sources, 70 billion messages, one billion pictures and 200 million videos are shared on a daily basis. Till August, the active user base found for WhatsApp was 600 million and it is expected to grow even further.
WhatsApp is packed with features.
Talking about why they prefer WhatsApp over other social messenger, Anirudh Vasdev (Media & Communication graduate), a WhatsApp user says, “Firstly it’s easy to use and much more reliable than many other applications in its league. Secondly, you can easily send not only text messages with emotion icons but also pictures, videos and voice notes. Thirdly, its connectivity is excellent as it uses low amounts on MB storage on servers and on mobile handsets, so even when the mobile data is slow or wifi connectivity is poor, your messages would come and go. Buffering time is also minimal as compared to other applications. However, I believe that it is only now that it is gaining popularity amongst the older generation, otherwise up till now it was fiercely dominated by the youth.”
WhatsApp has an ability to share music.
“I have never been able to switch the application because it has never given me any reasons to do so. I even use WhatsApp for my official work use and I am sure a lot of companies also do the same. It is very easy to use, can be learnt by anyone irrespective of their age. And also, it is not heavy in terms of the storage,” says Sidhant Mago (Senior Copywriter in an Ad Agency), a WhatsApp user.
Video sharing is now very easy.
By 2015, WhatsApp is expected to launch free voice calling feature which is expected to multifold the user base. The voice calling feature would have four buttons- call mute, switch to text messages, directing the call through device speaker and cancel the call. This feature would be available on the new 4.5.5 version of the application.
