Popular messaging app banned for two days in Brazil, competitor gains 1.5 million users in 2 hours

Popular messaging app owned by Facebook, WhatsApp, has been banned in Brazil for two days.

According to a report by Buzzfeed News, the app was banned for failing to comply with a court order.

"The company did not attend the court order [and so] the prosecution requested the blocking of services for a period of 48 hours, based on the law," according to the 1 criminal court of São Bernardo do Campo in São Paulo in its statement.

The CNBC reports that the case for which WhatsApp has been banned is related to the use of voice-over-internet (VOIP) calls through WhatsApp.

The report states that Brazilian phone companies have argued that this classifies WhatsApp as a telecommunications company and as such should be governed by Brazilian laws.

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All the major mobile networks have been told to block access to WhatsApp for two days starting from 2am GMT on Thursday.

Techcrunch reports that over 93% of the Internet users in Brazil – about 110 million people, use WhatsApp so as to avoid excess phone bills.

Meanwhile, Telegram, a rival messaging service which is popular for its security features, has gained excess traffic in Brazil since the court’s ruling passed.

In a tweet the company said it had already gained over 1.5 million users and had "all hands on deck to accommodate the crazy load."

Jan Koum, founder of WhatsApp, said he was “disappointed” in the decision of the Brazilian court via a Facebook status (which was liked by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg).

WhatsApp currently averages 900 million monthly active users worldwide.