There have been rumors for several years about how the WhatsApp messenger could integrate advertising. Is this now becoming a reality?
WhatsApp is the most used messenger in the world. According to current statistics, communicate over 2 billion people with the app – and the trend is increasing. In Germany, an impressive 82 percent of those who use messengers and social media have WhatsApp. Of course, there is also great potential in these enormous numbers. That’s why experts have been speculating for some time as to how parent company Meta could monetize the service. An obvious assumption is of course advertising that could be shown to WhatsApp users. But what’s behind the rumors, which are currently more current than ever?
Advertising possible in WhatsApp
Like the British business magazine Financial Times reports that WhatsApp is currently working on a way to integrate advertising into the messenger. Specifically, we are talking about an implementation in the chat overview. According to the magazine, they spoke to three people involved in the project.
According to the sources, it is in a testing phase. However, there is also internal resistance, as WhatsApp derives part of its popularity from being ad-free.
Also interesting: This is how you write in italics, bold or strikethrough on WhatsApp
Reasons for advertising in WhatsApp
As of now, there is no advertising on WhatsApp, in contrast to the other meta platforms Facebook and Instagram. Until January 2016, WhatsApp charged a small subscription fee, which was then abolished. Since then, the service has been completely free and ad-free. So how does WhatsApp make money?
It’s actually not that clear. Part of the business model is most likely user data. However, the collection of these data is particularly limited in Europe. Some income also comes from the WhatsApp business services, for which companies pay money.
Meta certainly didn’t buy WhatsApp in 2014 with the intention of not making any profits from the service. Of course, this also means that a strong competitor to Facebook Messenger has been integrated into the group. But WhatsApp offers such enormous potential for advertising and advertising customers that the question will certainly be addressed again and again.
How realistic are the rumors?
The fact that advertising is coming to WhatsApp is anything but clear. In the past, Meta has denied such rumors several times. However, implementing advertising seems to be the only sensible thing to do in the long term – at least from a monetary perspective. If a corresponding solution can be found here, Meta will probably not miss the opportunity. Theoretically, a combination of advertising and subscription would also be conceivable. Anyone who pays gets the messenger without advertising – along the lines of Spotify, for example.
At least at the moment, this doesn’t seem to be an option for WhatsApp. At TECHBOOK’s request, such plans were clearly denied. WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart has now confirmed this via X (formerly Twitter).
In his tweet, Cathcart specifically refers to the Financial Times report and clearly states that they are not currently working on a corresponding implementation. It is unclear whether this will mean that WhatsApp will remain ad-free in the long term.
source
- Financial Times (“WhatsApp explores ads in chat app as Meta seeks revenue boost”, accessed on September 15, 2023)
- Statista (“Number of monthly active users of WhatsApp worldwide in selected months from April 2013 to February 2020,” accessed on September 15, 2023)
- Statista (“Ranking of the most popular social networks and messengers according to the share of users in Internet users in Germany in 2022”, accessed on September 15, 2023)