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A comment on Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?.

Re:Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money? by arjunvpaul on Thursday October 22, 2020 @01:45PM (#24860844)
From Businesses - small and large. Using the WhatsApp API. That alone is a multi-billion dollar opportunity.

For example, people like my startup (https://www.zoko.io) provides software that enable folks to run any business on (only) WhatsApp.

WhatsApp would make money by - charging for certain types of messages sent via the API (already doing it) - from ads on the WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram Platform that click directly to WhatsApp.(already doing it) - enabling payments via WhatsApp Pay and then take a cut of the payments. (coming soon)

I am amazed by the things that my customers do with WhatsApp - like Fintech companies who provide loans to Uber drivers via WhatsApp, OR Fertility Clinics that dole out professional advice on how to make babies, via WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is just getting started! Remember when the internet was free, Google showed up and became a toll collector for doing anything on the internet? Just like that, WhatsApp is the internet of the #nextbillion people. WhatsApp, if they play their cards right, could become the "toll collector of the internet for the #nextbillion". I am literally all in, that it will.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money? by cyrrus on Thursday October 22, 2020 @05:45PM (#24863640)
Those are some big words but.... the chat market is flooded. I barely use Whats App as well as most people I know so they are far from ubiquitous.

Why then? Why not any other chat app, or even messenger with far greater reach and just as many resources?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money? by bozzcl on Thursday October 22, 2020 @07:53PM (#24864623)
That might be the case in your country... but in Latin America, for example, WhatsApp is HUGE. People don't text each other, they use WhatsApp. Mobile carriers provide plans with discounted traffic for WhatsApp, or sometimes even free. Entire family and friend groups constantly keep in touch using WhatsApp.

In fact, Bolsonaro used WhatsApp spam as part of his election campaign strategy[1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/30/whatsapp-fake-...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money? by ksec on Friday October 23, 2020 @07:22AM (#24868294)
WhatsApp are just not used as much in US. As a matter of fact no one knew what was WhatsApp in US before Facebook acquire them.

It was pretty much the days of AIM and MSN. When the rest of the world was on MSN. US was still on AIM.

Without the China Market WhatsApp has 1.6B user.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money? by arjunvpaul on Friday October 23, 2020 @08:00AM (#24868505)
In those United States, you would be right to think so. Yes, there are other chat apps. A flood? No. A (cess)pool, maybe.

Outside of WhatsApp (2 Billion Monthly Active Users), Messenger (1.4 Billion MAU) and WeChat (1.2 Billion MAU) the others stand little chance of building and benefiting from being a platform.

Setting aside WeChat and China, if you now look at the next billion users who are going to be using the internet for the first time, WhatsApp is the lens through which they see the internet - they communicate, consume news and entertainment, buy and sell things, get medical advice, even fall in love via WhatsApp.

In India, where a significant portion of that #nextbillion are gonna come from, Messenger has ~100M users and WhatsApp has ~500M MAU. Similar multiples play out in "WhatsApp first" markets like Latin America, most parts of Asia.

Case in Point: Even though it had nothing to do with our business, we recently helped hack together a solution to conduct two, 20-question, exams for 100K students in an Indian State. Simply because every family had WhatsApp (and nothing else). Messenger simply doesn't have the reach in the emerging world.

[ Parent | on HN ]