WhatsApp, the most famous instant messenger which is available for multiple platforms like Android, Windows Phones,Blackberry, Symbian and iOS is going to be FREE for ever. The service was not FREE earlier they were charging a nominal amount of $0.99/year(in India they were providing it for FREE, every year they will extend the expiry date of the current subscription to the next year).
Facebook (who owned WhatsApp on 2014) have decided to take down the subscription charge and make it FREE. The happy news is that it will remain advertisement Free even after this. The updates will be scrolling out to all platform soon.
So how will the company will make profit from this application here is what the WhatsApp blog says
Naturally, people might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today's announcement means we're introducing third-party ads. The answer is no. Starting this year, we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from. That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight. We all get these messages elsewhere today – through text messages and phone calls – so we want to test new tools to make this easier to do on WhatsApp, while still giving you an experience without third-party ads and spam.
You can read more on the official WhatsApp blog.
Am still wondering what will people do if their subscription expires before the updates are rolling out, may be WhatsApp will extend the subscription of them like they do it for Indian users.