WhatsApp inches closer to revenue plan with accounts for businesses

by Estelle Bryant | January 18, 2018 | 20:04
WhatsApp inches closer to revenue plan with accounts for businesses

Idema, who was a Facebook executive before he joined WhatsApp previous year, said WhatsApp intends to charge businesses in some form in the future, but he said it was too soon to discuss when that would happen or what the future business services would look like. The app is available starting today and is free to download in Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the U.S. and will be rolled out around the world in the coming weeks.

The company had previously announced the app's arrival, and begun verifying business accounts as part of its WhatsApp Business pilot program back in September 2017.

Messaging giant WhatsApp has launched a new app aimed at small businesses to help them communicate more quickly with customers by using the messaging platform.

The app offers quite a few unique features like business profiles that include useful information like description, addresses, email, and website as well as messaging tools that help businesses provide quick replies to frequently asked questions and greeting messages that introduce customers to their businesses.

With WhatsApp Business, the Facebook-owned social messaging platform wants to give businesses more controls as how to how they communicate with their customers.

Messaging application WhatsApp said on Thursday that it would begin allowing business accounts for the first time, a step that brings the free service closer to a plan that would make money for its corporate parent, Facebook Inc.

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Will help businesses review simple metrics like the number of messages read to see what's working.

The customers will know that they're talking to a business and not an individual on WhatsApp as it will be listed as a Business Account.

While businesses will need to use this new app to communicate with customers, for the general WhatsApp user, there's no change.

The Indian team confirmed to YourStory that the app will be released in spurts, and will be available in India in the coming weeks. With today's announcement, WhatsApp is making WhatsApp Business formal and launching a separate app for the same.

The Business app will later be joined by an enterprise solution aimed at large businesses with a global customer base - like airlines, e-commerce sites, and banks, WhatsApp had said last fall.

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