Massive WhatsApp Outage Hits Users Worldwide on Saturday Evening

NEW DELHI, India – WhatsApp, the popular messaging application owned by Meta, experienced significant outages impacting users worldwide on Saturday evening, April 12, 2025. Reports from users indicated widespread difficulties with sending and receiving messages, confirming their struggles through the outage-tracking website, Downdetector.

As of 5:30 p.m. IST, Downdetector recorded nearly 600 outage reports, with that number climbing to 173 by 7:30 p.m. IST. Affected users primarily reported issues related to sending messages, with close to 88 percent of complaints focusing on message delivery failures. Another 10 percent attributed their problems to the app’s performance, while 2 percent of users experienced login difficulties.

Affected regions included India, the United States, and various other countries, where users took to platforms like X (formerly Twitter) to share their frustrations and to verify whether others faced similar challenges. Screenshots of undelivered messages illustrated the extent of the outage as many users sought explanations.

An Indian user, Kumar Subham, expressed his frustration by posting, “Is WhatsApp down? I have been trying to upload the status but it couldn’t.” Another user, Abdul Khalique, echoed this sentiment, asking, “Hey @WhatsApp, is the app down? I’m having trouble sending messages – they’re just not going through. Anyone else facing this?”

Despite the outpouring of complaints, the root cause of the outage remains undetermined. Users advised against repeatedly restarting their devices, indicating that the issue was likely on WhatsApp’s end. One user stated, “Stop restarting your phone. It’s not you. WhatsApp is down. Facebook and Instagram too.” Users turned to X to seek clarity and confirm whether they were alone in their struggles.

The incident arose shortly after another disruption earlier that day, when users in India encountered issues with the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Transactions through popular apps such as Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay were impeded due to a reported technical error, as noted by the payments interface operator.

WhatsApp has over 2.5 billion users globally and is a crucial communication tool for personal, business, and governmental interactions. As such, its temporary unavailability raises concerns over the dependency on single platforms for essential communications.

As of now, Meta has not provided an official statement regarding the cause of the outage or when services might be restored. Users continue to monitor social media for updates as they await a resolution to their messaging challenges.