[E192]With 900M users, WhatsApp solidifies Facebook’s dominance…

With 900M users, WhatsApp solidifies Facebook’s dominance over social apps

Messaging app WhatsApp keeps growing more popular with users each month. The Facebook-owned app, which is used by people around the world to send texts without paying carrier fees, now has more than 900 million monthly active users[月活跃用户], according to a Facebook post by WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum. The numbers reinforce[加强，加固；强化；补充] Facebook’s global dominance[全球主导地位] over social apps. Founded in 2009, WhatsApp started life as a basic text-messaging app but has recently rolled out[铺开;推出] new features like voice calling[语音呼叫] as well as its Web app.

Congrats to[恭喜;祝贺] Jan, the WhatsApp team and whole community on reaching 900 million people!

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

The app, which operates on just about every mobile platform, is often used to message abroad for free. While WhatsApp still lacks any sort of business model, Facebook is likely happy to remain patient on that front[在那方面]. Smartphone owners spend more time in messaging apps than any other apps, which makes them valuable real estate. And given Facebook’s ambitions to turn its own Messenger into a tool for commerce, owning the competition outright[完全的，彻底的；直率的；总共的] ensures it stays relevant.

The right strategy is to first focus on connecting 1 billion-plus people and reaching the full potential before very aggressively turning them into businesses.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg