When Facebook bought WhatsApp Messenger in 2014, the annual fee was abolished and a strict advertising-free policy was adopted. That is now changing.
WhatsApp is one of the largest social networks in the world, with around 1.5 billion users who send over 60 billion messages every day. The messenger is, just like Instagram, part of the Facebook empire. In terms of money, however, the service doesn't bring in anything - and that's set to change in 2019.
Status messages – a profitable feature
We're talking about the popular WhatsApp status function. This has more than 450 million active users every day, which is about twice as many as Snapchat. It's hardly surprising that Facebook wants to monetize this feature. Now WhatsApp Vice President Chris Daniels has announced the introduction of advertising within it at an event in New Delhi.
For the time being, the advertising will only be displayed between individual status messages. Private chats will therefore not be affected. A launch date has not been announced - media reports say it will start in 2019. According to Daniels, advertising revenue will be the company's main source of income.
WhatsApp Business
A lot has happened in this area too. At the beginning of the year, WhatsApp provided a business service for smaller companies in the form of its own Android app. In the future, large companies will also have the opportunity to communicate directly with their customers via the messenger. The first large customers to use the “WhatsApp Business API” include airlines such as KLM and Singapore Airlines, as well as Booking.com, Wish and Uber.
In order to start such a conversation, users must first agree to the communication. This would comply with the requirements of the European General Data Protection Regulation. Large companies can use the service directly from the conventional WhatsApp application. Setting up this interface and chatting are free of charge. Billing is based on the number of notifications in real time. No information was given on the exact costs.
