The Way In Which Apps Like WhatsApp, WeChat Helps Make Money While Offering up Free Texting And Calling3111211
Have you ever wondered the way a messaging app can make money while offering free texting and calling? WhatsApp users at India may be surprised to know there is far more to messaging apps than communicating. Here's how: by providing services such as digital payments, online shopping and also content.
China's WeChat is just about the ultimate example of the large potential that messaging apps hold. With over 900 million monthly active users, WeChat assists them do almost everything from messaging, purchasing grocery, hailing cabs, ordering online food as well as offline payments at restaurants - this all without needing to go to another app. These kinds of services not only offer the company incredible customer stickiness, they also create a remarkable revenue model.
At the moment, WeChat's competition outside China including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Viber and Line are behind the curve on this front, even though some have begun on the road to becoming larger platforms. "The actual reason chat apps are growing beyond communications is to develop a lasting 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 simply a provider of communication tools chat, voice and video) to becoming a platform for the exchange of services, payment mechanisms and also content consumption." WhatsApp, the largest messaging app in the world with 1.3 billion monthly active users, introduced a business version in India early on this week. "Based on research, we realize that people are utilizing WhatsApp to speak with businesses. make business messaging less difficult for folks and more productive for businesses," a WhatsApp spokesman said in response to ET's questions. Whatsapp Business is a separate app from Whatsapp Messenger, aimed mostly at giving a direct communicating platform to smaller businesses, the majority of who may be using WhatsApp already.
Whilst Whatsapp has maintained the service free, it might extend it to bigger businesses with added features like analytics, from which it may well demand a usage fee at a later stage, hence creating a revenue model, segment watchers said. This actually also is targeted at improving subscriber connect that it can make use of for future monetization of its other services. The greater agenda - and a more important one - for these corporations is to get active users to invest a lot more time on the app or services and make it viable for revenue generation, according to analysts.
"Every single technology company is vying for consumer stickiness, interaction and also time spent on the app, and in order to keep them within the app's ecosystem they're broadening themselves to turn into platforms. Merely being messaging apps offering free services is not going to be a good revenuegeneration model," said Jayanth Kolla, founding father of Bengaluru-based research firm Convergence Catalyst.
