After years of surviving as a $0.99 (Rs. 58 approx.) paid app, WhatsApp, the popular messaging app has finally gone free to download for Apple devices. From today, iPhone and iPad users will be able to download WhatsApp for free and use it without paying anything for the first year. The second year onwards, users will have to pay an annual subscription amount of $0.99. This is the same system employed by WhatsApp on Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry.

WhatsApp has been at the top of the popularity charts despite tough competition from other IM apps like Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, Hike, WeChat and Viber. WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum claimed back in April that his company saw more activity than Twitter with over 200 million active monthly users and about 20 billion messages sent and received daily.