Yesterday marked a significant milestone for WhatsApp, with the messaging platform passing the one billionth user threshold. As such, Facebook's acquisition of the company a little less than two years ago looks like a sound investment. That said, monetising the service itself is still proving a tough nut to crack. A few weeks ago, WhatsApp ended its subscription-based service and removed all ads from the platform. 

As such, WhatsApp does not generate any distinct revenue for Facebook despite its unquestionable popularity. The platform is even more popular that Facebook's own Messenger service, which has roughly 800 million users. There might, however, be a correlation between WhatsApp's growth, and its purchase by Facebook.

When the February 2014 deal went through, with Mark Zuckerberg and co. forking out a sizeable $19 billion for the platform, WhatsApp had an estimated 450 million users. In the aforementioned two years, the user base has skyrocketed to the recent one billion mark. 

Perhaps then, we can conclude that Facebook's intention for WhatsApp will be to charge businesses to reach and engage with a wider audience. "Next, we're going to work to connect more people around the world and make it easier to communicate with businesses," said Zuckerberg in a Facebook post about the one billion user milestone.