WhatsApp launches upgraded race car emoji, sees double digit growth in the US

WhatsApp has given its race car emoji a makeover ahead of the upcoming Formula 1 Grand Prix. "Bring all the race day energy into your chats with our redesigned race car emoji. Now you can rock Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 colors all the way into Grand Prix weekend," the company said on its channel.

The WhatsApp race car emoji now features a black car with cyan highlights. It was projected on the Empire State Building in New York, as part of a partnership between WhatsApp and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team.

The emoji shares timelines with an announcement from Mark Zuckerberg suggesting WhatsApp is reaching new heights in the US. In a post on his WhatsApp channel, the Meta CEO said, "We're seeing double digit growth in messages and daily users on WhatsApp in the US."

This comes days after Meta revealed the monthly active user count for its relatively recent social media platform Threads. In a statement during Meta's Q1 2024 earnings call, Zuckerberg said that Threads now has over 150 million monthly active users, adding it's estimated that over 3.2 billion people at least use one of Meta's apps each day.

Speaking of WhatsApp, Meta (formerly Facebook) acquired the instant messaging app, founded by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, in 2014. Since then, Meta has tried to retain WhatsApp's initial stance of not putting ads in the app.

There have been reports of ads coming to WhatsApp as recently as last year, however, its head Will Cathcart denied them. Still, Meta has managed to churn money out of the instant messaging app by building a separate app and features for businesses.

In recent months, WhatsApp has ramped up its development speed and released new features for general users more frequently, including passkeys on iOS, group chat filter, video forward/rewind, and more.