WhatsApp was bought by Facebook in the year 2014 for a huge price of $19 billion, 950 times its revenue in 2013. WhatsApp at that time was free in most parts of the world and only charged subscription fees to countries like the US,the UK and the Netherlands, where people were accustomed to mobile purchases from credit cards.
Why did Facebook allow WhatsApp to work without generating revenues?
It was widely criticized that Facebook had invested in a company that had not even been able to generate any revenues for them in a whole year. Initially, it seemed that the social tool like Facebook had probably made a mistake in foreseeing WhatsApp’s future. But it wasn’t so. People were not aware of the power of its features like WhatsApp status .WhatsApp was allowed this leverage so that it could continue to grow under the name of Facebook. Everyone’s prime goal was its growth rather than revenues.
What now when WhatsApp has crossed over a billion users
WhatsApp has been claiming that it was getting a million users each day since it came under Facebook. In the year 2016, after two years of its acquisition, it finally was able to cross the huge mark of a billion users which is one-seventh of the world population. After this huge achievement when it finally was able to reach the goal it had set out to achieve, WhatsApp announced a good news for all business owners.
WhatsApp dropping subscription charges
Already WhatsApp was charging very few countries for its subscription with its annual turnover being a mere $20million. Now that it has crossed the billion-user mark under Facebook, it has decided to wave off the small subscription fee of 99 cents /year completely foreveryone from now onwards.
WhatsApp inviting business owners to its platform
Now that WhatsApp has shown immense growth under Facebook, it was time for it to justify its acquisition price. For two years it had been focusing on growth and not on generating revenues. With a billion users, it was time to do that. WhatsApp announced that it was time to invite all business owners to its platforms. Businesses had already been using its many features like WhatsApp status. But now after formal invitation,it will definitely be charging them for the business platform it will provide them.
How will it charge the businesses?
WhatsApp has not decided yet nor has it disclosed anything. It already has many examples of its counterparts to take help from. Facebook messenger inviting uber for business where messenger users could track and hail a ride easily. Then there is the example of WeChat, the Chinese counterpart of WhatsApp, who invites users to create accounts for their businesses like McDonald’s and media organizations. The result is that now 80% of its users have accounts with these companies.
With this announcement, WhatsApp has managed to attract everyone’s attention. With many examples to take help from, it is expected to release its beta version in the market pretty soon. Let’s wait and watch how that turns out for everyone.
References:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2016/01/18/whatsapp-businesses-free-1-billion/#582cfcfb6bd1
