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Business News/ Industry / Facebook may soon allow B2C interactions on WhatsApp
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Facebook may soon allow B2C interactions on WhatsApp

WhatsApp users may soon start receiving business messages after Facebook hinted at monetizing the service

With an active user base of 800 million in April, WhatsApp has remained a free service with no advertising or other paid offerings like games or stickers. Photo: BloombergPremium
With an active user base of 800 million in April, WhatsApp has remained a free service with no advertising or other paid offerings like games or stickers. Photo: Bloomberg

WhatsApp users may soon start receiving business messages on the popular messenger app after Facebook Inc. hinted at monetizing the service it acquired in October last year.

With an active user base of 800 million in April, WhatsApp has remained a free service with no advertising or other paid offerings like games or stickers.

Facebook’s decision to monetize WhatsApp was confirmed on Monday by chief financial officer (CFO) David Wehner. “We think that enabling B2C (business to consumer) messaging has good business potential for us," he was cited as saying in a Bloomberg news report. Wehner was speaking at a technology conference in Boston.

In March at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg announced a messenger business or a “new way for Facebook users to communicate with businesses directly within the Messenger app," as noted by popular tech site TNW. The feature has since been intergated into the latest version of Messenger a companion app of Facebook.

In markets like India, people have resorted to WhatsApp as a easier, hassle-free alternative to traditional texts, creating an economy for marketers and small businesses to actively engage with potential consumers. In the past few years, WhatsApp has been used by politicians, real estate businesses and local restaurants to advertise their products. While it has worked for political parties, most notably the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during its election campaign in 2014, the communications by commercial entities have often been looked at by consumers as intrusive, or simply put, spam. With Facebook opening up WhatsApp for B2C interactions, consumers should naturally expect more of the same.

In February 2014, Facebook announced it was acquiring the Jan Koum-founded WhatsApp for an initial value of $19 billion. It closed the deal in October last year for $22 billion. In November, WhatsApp had nearly 70 million active users in India, roughly 10% of its then user base.

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Published: 20 May 2015, 01:34 PM IST
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