The move comes as a Technology research firm, Gartner, reports that BlackBerry dominates at less than one percent of the smartphone market. When WhatsApp hit the app stores, BlackBerry dominated the industry with over 70%.

Over the years, mobile operating systems of Apple, Google and Microsoft took over the market and now they run on almost 99.5 percent of devices. When WhatsApp started in 2009, merely 25 percent devices used these operating systems. 

"As of today, one billion people are using WhatsApp. That's nearly one in seven people on Earth who use WhatsApp each month to stay in touch with their loved ones, their friends and their family,"

 said WhatsApp in a blogpost.

Previously, WhatsApp had claimed that its service has seen strong uptake, especially across developing nations such as Brazil, India and Russia.

Based in Mountain View, California, WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook Inc. on February 19, 2014, for approximately USD 19.3 Bn. As of February 2016, WhatsApp has a user base of nearly one billion making it the most popular messaging application globally.