<p>Santa Clara-based WhatsApp this week reported it's now being used by 250 million people per month.</p><p>Santa Clara-based free messaging service WhatsApp this week hit a major milestone, announcing its apps now have more than 250 million monthly users. To put that number in perspective, that's the total population of California, roughly 6 times over. That's two Japans worth of people.</p><p>The Wall Street Journal reports hitting a quarter-billion users officially puts the four-year-old startup in the major leagues, bigger than Twitter's 200 million active users and closing in on Skype's most recently announced 280 million users. Earlier this month, WhatsApp revealed its users had sent 27 billion free text messages in a single 24-hour period.</p><p>Free texting services are especially popular overseas, where text messaging rates are much higher than in the U.S. WhatsApp's success has bred major competitors like Viber, LINE, KakaoTalk, Groupme, Kik and myriad more.</p><p><a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/06/21/mobile-behemoth-whatsapp-cracks-a.html">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://thefonecast.com/News/TabId/62/ArtMID/541/ArticleID/6965/Messaging-app-WhatsApp-has-more-than-250-million-active-users.aspx">Messaging app WhatsApp has more than 250 million active users</a> (The Fonecast)</p><p><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/net-based-services-like-whatsapp-are-replacing-sms-among-the-under-35s-says-analysys-mason-7000017147/">Net-based services like WhatsApp are replacing SMS among the under 35s ...</a> (ZDNet)</p><p><a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/06/20/whatsapp-surpasses-250-million-active-users/">WhatsApp Surpasses 250 Million Active Users</a> (Wall Street Journal (blog))</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=dIpuCk2btqhtsfMMkrLs2xGRHLRTM&ned=us">25 additional articles.</a></p>