The Way Apps Like WhatsApp, WeChat Helps Make Money While Providing Free Texting And Calling9012168
Have you ever wondered just how a messaging app can make money while offering free texting and calling? WhatsApp users within India might be surprised to know that there is more to messaging apps than communicating. Here's how: by providing services such as digital payments, online shopping as well as content.
China's WeChat is among the perfect example of the huge possibilities which messaging apps hold. With over Nine hundred million monthly active users, WeChat assists them do everything from messaging, buying grocery, hailing cabs, ordering online food as well as offline payments at restaurants - all this without needing to go to another app. These services not only offer the company extraordinary customer stickiness, in addition they create a wonderful revenue model.
Right now, WeChat's competition outside China this includes WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Viber as well as Line are behind the curve on this front, even though some have begun on the road to becoming greater platforms. "The reason chat apps are expanding beyond communications is to build a sustainable monetisation strategy," said Neha Dharia, a senior analyst with a focus on messaging at London-based research firm Ovum. "Chat apps are shifting from being just a provider of communication tools chat, voice and also video) to being a platform for the exchange of services, payment mechanisms and content consumption." WhatsApp, the biggest messaging app in the world with 1.3 billion every month active users, introduced a business version in India early on this week. "Based on research, we realize that people are utilizing WhatsApp to talk to businesses. make business messaging less difficult for individuals and much more efficient for businesses," a WhatsApp representative said in response to ET's questions. Whatsapp Business is a different app from Whatsapp Messenger, aimed largely at giving a direct communication platform to small enterprises, a lot of who might be using WhatsApp already.
Whilst Whatsapp has maintained the service free, it may extend it to much larger businesses with added features for example analytics, from which it could demand a usage fee at a later stage, therefore creating a revenue model, segment watchers said. This also is geared at raising subscriber connect which it can leverage for future monetization of their other services. The greater agenda - and a more critical one - for these firms is to get active users to spend a lot more time on the app or services and make it viable for income generation, based on experts.
"Each technology company is competing for consumer stickiness, interaction along with time spent on the app, and in order to keep them in the app's ecosystem they are broadening themselves to turn into platforms. Just being messaging applications offering free services is not going to be a good revenuegeneration model," said Jayanth Kolla, founding father of Bengaluru-based research firm Convergence Catalyst.
