Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, announced a significant milestone today as WhatsApp Business, its app tailored for small businesses, surpassed 200 million monthly active users. This marks a substantial increase from the 50 million users reported in 2020. As part of Meta's "year of efficiency" initiative, the company has introduced new features aimed at enhancing the experience for WhatsApp Business users, including simplified ad creation and a personalized message service.
In its pursuit of developing a metaverse, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been investing billions of dollars. To offset these expenses, the company is focusing on generating revenue from alternative sources, such as WhatsApp. As part of this strategy, WhatsApp Business users can now create "click-to-WhatsApp" ads without requiring a Facebook account. Furthermore, sellers have the ability to create, purchase, and publish ads for Facebook and Instagram directly from within the WhatsApp Business app.
During Meta's Q3 earnings call last year, Zuckerberg revealed that "click-to-WhatsApp" ads had surpassed an annual revenue run rate of $1.5 billion, exhibiting an 80% year-on-year growth. Building on this success, WhatsApp Business is introducing another paid feature that allows merchants to automate the process of sending personalized messages to their customers. Although pricing details have not been disclosed, WhatsApp plans to begin testing the feature in the near future. Screenshots shared by the company demonstrate that businesses will be able to send distinct messages to various customer lists, such as sending a discount code with a purchase button to new customers.
Meta has been actively working towards increasing revenue from paid messaging in recent months. In February, the company announced changes to the pricing structure and messaging categories on WhatsApp, including utility, authentication, marketing, and user-initiated service conversations. During Meta's Q1 2023 earnings call, Zuckerberg disclosed that click-to-message ads had reached a $10 billion revenue run rate, with the number of businesses utilizing the paid messaging service on WhatsApp experiencing a 40% quarter-over-quarter growth.
Although Meta currently does not disclose separate revenue figures for WhatsApp, it is grouped within the "other" category. Meta reported strong growth in messaging revenue for the WhatsApp Business platform in the quarter ending in March; however, this growth was offset by a decline in other line items, resulting in a 5% dip for the category compared to the previous year.
WhatsApp has also been focusing on its payments business within the platform. The company introduced the ability to pay merchants for users in Brazil in April and expanded this functionality to Singapore a month later. Recently, WhatsApp launched the channels feature, enabling broadcast conversations from different organizations, and expressed its intention to explore integrating payments into channels.
Overall, WhatsApp Business's remarkable growth in monthly active users and the introduction of new features like personalized messages highlight Meta's commitment to enhancing its revenue streams beyond the metaverse development efforts.
[Image Credits: Thomas Trutschel / Getty Images]
Reference: "WhatsApp Business crosses 200M MAUs, introduces personalized messages feature" by Ivan Mehta, originally published on TechCrunch.
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