WhatsApp temporarily vanished from Google's Play Store without explanation

Christian Wiediger/Unsplash

• 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.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

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.

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WhatsApp was not discoverable during the downtime.

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.

Read more: Most Americans don't know Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp

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.