WhatsApp | How Does WhatsApp Make Money? |

Welcome to Friends.

Most of us wake up in the morning and the first thing we do is check the WhatsApp messages on our mobile phones.

From good morning messages to using WhatsApp for internet banking

WhatsApp has undoubtedly become the most used messaging app in the world right now.

Currently, there are more than 2 billion active users of WhatsApp in the world.

But being a WhatsApp user, we all know that WhatsApp is a free application.

Similarly, we do not see any advertisments while using WhatsApp.

So here the question arises that how and why WhatsApp is providing services to its more than two billion users without any cost.

How WhatsApp makes money, What is WhatsApp's business model?

Friends, in today's article, we will try to explore the answers to these questions.

WhatsApp was founded by Brian Acton and Jan Koum in 2009.

The story of this startup started when they both quit their jobs at Yahoo and started traveling around the world. But soon, their savings began to run out, and they had to re-apply for jobs in different places.

They were quite disappointed after the job rejection from Twitter and Facebook but after this failure they started a new journey of life.

Jan Koum got the inspiration of WhatsApp in such a way that when Jan used to go to the gym for exercise, he could not answer the calls of his friends on his phone.

He thought there should be an app where he could update the status that he is currently at the gym so that his friends would know about it and do not call him.

Working on this idea, he created an application for iPhone called WhatsApp.

The word WhatsApp comes from what's up means through this app you could tell your status that I am in the gym right now or I am eating right now Interestingly, the WhatsApp application launched in 2009 did not have a messaging service.

With this app you could only update your status which other people could see on their app.

But after the introduction of push notifications by the iPhone, this application gained a lot of popularity among the users.

Now whenever you update your status on this app,

it sends a notification to all the WhatsApp contacts in your phone book. Although the purpose of this application was not for messaging but over time people started using it as a messaging app to some extent.

For example, you update your status that I am going to the gym in response one of your friends updates the status that I am also going to the same gym. And in this way, you can communicate with each other with the help of these statuses.

Then they thought why not we design this application as a messaging app as well. It was a time when in most countries of the world, mobile companies were charging per message for sending SMS which was not affordable for most people.

There was only one free messaging app called Black Berry Messenger (BBM) but it required a BlackBerry mobile.

So WhatsApp filled this gap in the market and within few days millions of people downloaded this app.

In view of the growing popularity of WhatsApp, some investors also expressed their desire to buy its shares.

Similarly, there was a way to make money with the help of advertisements, but friends Brian Acton and Jan Koum said that they want to keep this app adds-free and want to run the app on a no-profit, no-loss basis.

In the beginning WhatsApp did not require much financial or administrative resources to run.

A small team was created to run the application, looking after its technical and administrative aspects.

To cover these costs, WhatsApp charged its users an annual fee of $1. That is, WhatsApp was no longer free, but users had to pay $1 per year to use it.

Even after this $1 annual charges, the number of downloaders was increasing day by day. By 2011, WhatsApp was in the top ten apps category on the App Store.

Because of this business model, WhatsApp became profitable in about three years.

These funds were used on the team to develop and run the app. with the passage of time, more features were being added like sending photos with the help of the app so in the next few years, by February 2013, the number of WhatsApp users had crossed 200 million , Brian Acton kept a note on his desk that read no adds, no games, no gimmicks.

Brian Acton had a clear stance that he would keep the app as a simple messaging app that would take full care of the user's data privacy.

He said that "our product is our passion. Your data isn't even in the picture".

By 2014, many messaging apps had been introduced in the market such as viber, wechat, and Facebook messenger.

Facebook thought that if they bought WhatsApp there would be no competition left between Facebook and WhatsApp as a whole.

Moreover, the data of millions of users on WhatsApp could have potentially become a source of more money for Facebook.

So in a deal in 2014, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg bought WhatsApp for $19 billion.

Friends, the question arises here, why user data privacy claimant Brian Acton and Jan Koum sold WhatsApp?

The $19 billion deal was a huge attraction in itself but apart from that, Facebook reassured WhatsApp founders and users that although we are buying WhatsApp , but that WhatsApp would remain independent and operate independently.

So the founders of WhatsApp accepted that we will get money and we don't have to compromise on our values.

In 2016, WhatsApp removed the $1 annual fee and WhatsApp became a completely free application once again.

This was because in many countries, including Pakistan, people did not have credit cards for this payment.

But since Mark Zuckerberg spent $19 billion to buy WhatsApp , it became very important for him to make WhatsApp profitable.

So he put a lot of pressure on the founders of WhatsApp, Brian Acton and Jan Koum, to come up with a business model for this app.

And then finally in September 2017, Brian Acton resigned and shortly thereafter Jan Koum also resigned.

They said that they do not agree with the policy that Facebook is trying to make regarding user data privacy and moreover that the business model that Facebook is going to make for WhatsApp is against their principles so they are leaving WhatsApp, Thus, Mark Zuckerberg had complete control over WhatsApp.

Facebook had some new plans for WhatsApp.

The company launched the WhatsApp Business application in 2018 through which users can create their business profile on WhatsApp.

And verified businesses can also link their website or Facebook page with this WhatsApp business profile.

That is, now a link has been established between Facebook pages and WhatsApp business profile and in this way a method to indirectly promote Facebook through WhatsApp has been found because anyone who uses WhatsApp business profile, can visit Facebook page by one click.

WhatsApp business application is currently free to download and use.

However, WhatsApp currently makes money through the WhatsApp for Business API.

API stands for Application Programming Interface.

For example while booking an Uber or Cream, you may have seen the Google watermark below the Uber cab map.

This does not mean that Uber is created by Google at all, but here, Uber is just using the Google Maps API. Similarly, various businesses can be integrated with WhatsApp through the WhatsApp API.

In this way, entrepreneurs can send notifications to their customers about various offers and automatically respond to their queries.

Moreover, the API program can also help users send shipping confirmations, appointment reminders or sell event tickets

Now the question is, how does WhatsApp earn money through API?

The monetization model is that business users are charged a small fee for replying to messages.

This fee is fixed differently for different countries.

Apparently, this business model doesn't seem that successful and surely you must be wondering what are the businesses that would use these services?

So friends these services are used by companies that deal with millions of customers like travel agents or banks etc.

Major international companies using the WhatsApp API include Singapore Airlines, booking.com, Uber and Netflix ABL and jazz cash are among the major companies using WhatsApp API in Pakistan.

Apart from this, WhatsApp has also launched a service called WhatsApp Pay in some countries.

This is a facility provided for payment on WhatsApp Business.

WhatsApp Pay is free to use for general public but for businesses WhatsApp charges on every transaction.

There is a possibility that advertisements will also be placed on WhatsApp in the future , It is believed that these ads will be played on WhatsApp's status window in future.

You must be thinking of whatsapp current earnings but the answer is not that simple because WhatsApp is now a part of Facebook company , so there is no clear or separate statistics of WhatsApp's own earnings, income statement or balance sheet.

But we know that there are millions of businesses around the world using WhatsApp Business app.

Many businesses in the world are currently being conducted solely on WhatsApp.

But currently the most important thing that WhatsApp has is the data of billions of users.

which is most precious thing of this era , In a way, WhatsApp's data privacy policy is very strict and protects users' data but with the help of computer intelligence, this data can be used to show Facebook ads to users according to their needs.

Friends, in the future WhatsApp can emerge as a huge e-commerce business platform in which various products can be sold and bought and their payments can also be made through the same platform.

will it be implemented or not, it is a question of future

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