WhatsApp temporarily vanished from Google's Play Store without explanation
- WhatsApp vanished from the Google Play store on Friday morning.
- The app then reappeared just over an hour and a half later.
- It's unclear at this stage why it disappeared - it may be the result of a bug.
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WhatsApp, the hugely popular encrypted messaging app owned by Facebook, temporarily vanished from the Google Play Store.
WhatsApp's sudden absence was first noticed on Friday morning by WhatsApp-focused blog WABetaInfo, and Business Insider was able to confirm that the app had disappeared from the Play Store on Android and the web. The messaging app's company-focused app WhatsApp Business did not vanish, and its main app also remained available on Apple's iOS App Store.
WhatsApp has over 1.5 billion monthly active users. A company spokeswoman declined to share a breakdown of the number of iOS versus Android users.
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Roughly an hour and forty minutes after it vanished, WhatsApp reappeared on the Play Store.
It is possible WhatsApp's disappearance was the result of a bug. Neither WhatsApp nor Google were immediately available to comment on why it went down.