While the spectrum varies from those who use the app on the daily to those who have never heard of the app, WhatsApp has become increasingly popular in Europe, India, and Latin America. The app made headlines recently when it was bought by Facebook for $19 billion. Most people would be very impressed with the 10 figure evaluation of the company, but there are several individuals who feel that the app is worth much more.

“Large scale networks like WhatsApp are rare and provide significant monetization opportunity, justifying their valuation over time,” said Robert Peck, analyst at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

WhatsApp is a mobile messaging service that serves a similar purpose as a social network. Users can send messages to one or multiple recipients at the same time and can post pictures and videos while also sharing their location. The app is exactly what Facebook has been looking for as they have tried to expand their reach to other countries and certain age brackets.

“Facebook users were complaining dearly about the lack of one-on-one personalized socializing and sharing, which WhatsApp clearly has been successful with,” said Vidya Nath, research director at Frost & Sullivan.

According to OnDevice Research, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app for smartphones. This will certainly help strengthen Facebook’s presence in the crowded messaging world. WhatsApp has become so popular because instead of racking up texting fees, the messaging service sends the messages over mobile broadband which makes it extremely cost effective to connect with people in overseas countries.

Facebook has been known to buy companies that could possibly become large rivals to them in the future. In 2012 Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion and now they have acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion. Facebook felt very confident with their purchase of WhatsApp and hope to use the messaging service to help expand their user base.

“It’s on a path to connecting a billion people,” said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. “There are very few services in the world that can reach that level and they’re all incredibly valuable.”