The Way In Which Apps Like WhatsApp, WeChat May Make Money While Providing Free Texting And Calling3772489
Ever wondered just how a messaging app could make money whilst offering free texting and calling? WhatsApp users at India could be surprised to know there is much more to messaging apps than communicating. Here's how: by offering services like digital payments, online shopping and content.
China's WeChat is probably the best example of the large possibilities which messaging apps hold. With more than 900 million monthly active users, WeChat enables them to do every thing from messaging, buying grocery, hailing cabs, purchasing online food and even offline payments at restaurants - all this without needing to go to another app. These services not merely provide the company outstanding customer stickiness, additionally they create a exceptional revenue model.
For now, WeChat's competition outside China such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Viber as well as Line are behind the curve on this front, even though some have begun on the path to becoming bigger platforms. "The actual reason chat apps are expanding beyond communications is to develop a sustainable monetisation strategy," said Neha Dharia, a senior analyst with a focus on messaging at London-based research firm Ovum. "Chat apps are moving 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 biggest messaging app on the planet with 1.3 billion monthly active users, introduced a business version in India very early this week. "Based on research, we all know that people are utilizing WhatsApp to talk to businesses. make business messaging more convenient for individuals and more productive for businesses," a WhatsApp spokesperson said in response to ET's questions. Whatsapp Business is a separate app from Whatsapp Messenger, aimed mainly at giving a direct communication platform to small enterprises, the majority of who might be using WhatsApp already.
Even while Whatsapp has maintained the service free, it could expand it to bigger businesses with added features like analytics, in which it could demand a usage fee at a later stage, thus developing a revenue model, segment watchers said. This actually also is geared at raising subscriber connect that it can make use of for future monetization of its other services. The larger agenda - and a more critical one - for these companies is to get active users to take much more time on the app or services as well as make it viable for income generation, based on specialists.
"Each and every technology company is vying for consumer stickiness, interaction along with time spent on the app, and in order to keep them around the app's ecosystem they are broadening themselves to become platforms. Simply being messaging applications that offer free services isn't going to be a strong revenuegeneration model," said Jayanth Kolla, founder of Bengaluru-based research firm Convergence Catalyst.
