imessage.jpgDuring today's annual stockholders meeting, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed (via Bloomberg) that 40 billion iMessages and 15 to 20 million FaceTime calls are made daily. That number suggests iMessage has grown exponentially over the course of the last year as usage numbers were at two billion messages per day in January of 2013.

As of mid–2013, Apple had 320 million iCloud accounts with 900 billion iMessages sent, a number that would be significantly higher today, taking into account 40 billion iMessages a day.

In comparison, popular messaging service WhatsApp, which was just purchased by Facebook, processes 50 billion messages per day. BlackBerry Messenger users on Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry phones send and receive upwards of 10 billion messages per day.

iMessage and FaceTime have become increasingly important messaging services for Apple over the course of the last year, and the company recently enhanced FaceTime with FaceTime Audio for both iOS devices and Macs, putting the video service on par with other apps like Skype.

During the meeting, Cook also announced impressive Apple TV sales numbers topping $1 billion and said the company had not lost its "innovative DNA."

Update 12:46 PM PST: According to The Wall Street Journal reporter Daisuke Wakabayashi, Apple CEO Tim Cook told shareholders that the company processes "several billion" iMessages per day, with the 40 billion number referring to notifications.

Top Rated Comments

Gudi Avatar
132 months ago
I guess it shows just how many people live inside Apple's little walled garden!
And it's such a nice garden. :)

Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nagromme Avatar
132 months ago
FaceTime, working just like a phone call (video or just audio) with zero config needed, and ringing all my devices at once, is the greatest thing since sliced bread. And cheaper too!

I guess it shows just how many people live inside Apple's little walled garden!
It's weird how I can still call, text, Skype, WhatsApp, WeChat, Google Hangout, you-name-it to people outside the garden! They really have to work on those "walls"... :p
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
larrylaffer Avatar
132 months ago
If you consider each message to be 160 characters at 7 bits per character, that's 5.21 TB per day in each direction, not including any image, video, or FaceTime data. Wow. So bandwidth.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
brandscill Avatar
132 months ago
Thankfully it's also been much more reliable of late
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SuperMatt Avatar
132 months ago
So, Whatsapp is an amazing company worth $19 billion. But Apple is toast and surely going to lose money, and a terrible stock to own... even though it sends as many messages per day as Whatsapp? See why it makes sense for Apple to buy back its own shares instead of acquiring a company like this? They can already do everything whatsapp does, and much more. If Wall St. ever pulls their heads out of their collective butts, we should see Apple trading at over $1000...
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BJMRamage Avatar
132 months ago
I use iMessage almost daily.
and most of the time upwards of 20-50 in a day.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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