WhatsApp Business Plan has Eyes to Capitalize the Budding Indian Market

The popular messenger is growing ambitious, developing new business strategies and exploring untouched venues. WhatsApp business plan is the latest strategy the company thought off to encash from the rising and budding Indian market.

It seems there is no halt to unfaltering growth of WhatsApp. What has emerged, initially, as a common platform for exchanging text messages, has gradually evolved into an aggregation of multiple applications, slowly intruding the social media platform. The already existing social messengers like Hike and Facebook felt the unperceivable challenge by its rising popularity which compelled Facebook to go for acquisition policy to beat off the threat posed by WhatsApp. Facebook made a whooping bargain of $ 19 Billion to the messenger in the year of 2014 and purchased it for good. Both, in turn, boosted the other in their annual turnouts.

Also Read: Reasons for WhatsApp’s continued popularity

The company, undoubtedly, has proved smart enough to keep its many users engaged and this new plan is just another example of a well thought out strategy. We are yet to witness How far this strategy will prove to be lucrative for the company??  

Facebook owned communication app had been tossing with the idea to optimize the money-making potentiality that the instant messaging platform already has for quite some time. Finally, the social messaging giant came up with the WhatsApp business solutions to be included into the application pretty soon and India will get to use this service first as soon as WhatsApp launches it sometime this year.

Allow me to give you a better understanding of WhatsApp business plan

India has proved to be a very profitable market for social media services like Facebook and recently for Facebook owned WhatsApp. Presently the instant messenger caters to nearly 200 million active users, connecting families and friends under its encompassing umbrella. It has constantly exerted efforts to find out and add new applications to keep the ever rising users satisfied and yearn for more.

In an attempt to make it more optimized, Facebook has decided to tap the money making potentiality Whatsapp’s business solutions have to offer.

This feature is quite different from that of Facebook at work.

This new ad on seek to benefit the millions of small merchants, neighborhood shop owners and doctors, already using this instant messenger, and are trying to connect with their potential consumers. The company will allow small business, brands, and enterprises to communicate with a wider consumer base, without spamming them. It is going to be a separate application that will entail sharing of targeted messages and videos.

This particular service will be first released in the Indian market. The rising young population of India has always been the choicest option for the company. Moreover the country has 35 million small and medium businesses, a huge sector for WhatsApp to monetize from and also prefer to leverage the budding market for their economic enhancement. Thus WhatsApp for business plan popped up keeping the budding Indian market in mind.

What is the future plan for WhatsApp??

If this idea gets clicked for Indian market, then it is highly likely, the WhatsApp enterprise solution will enter other markets such as Brazil and Indonesia.

Also, there are talks going around on possible digital payment option soon to be added to the messaging application as well.

Wrapping Up

You must not consider that WhatsApp’s business plan is a cover up to engage in monetizing via third party ads. Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, clearly stated, “We have this long-standing theme—no ads, no games, and no gimmicks,”

Neeraj Arora, head of business at WhatsApp, explained that, “If you are a small shop owner, and there is a bunch of people who buy from you, it will make communication easier,” 

Many business firms have already started utilizing this platform to improve their business communication with their key consumers. Examples:

• A food delivery service, The Tiffin Carrier, in Assam, gets around 90% of its sales through the messaging app. Its founder Nayen Das pointed out that 80% of his conversations with clients are on WhatsApp.
• Mukesh Patel, promoter of Gujarat-based solar power operator Sun Agro Systems, informed that he had been using WhatsApp for three years to stay in touch with dealers.

We do hope that WhatsApp’s business solutions for Indian market get clicked to befit the small enterprises.

What do you think about this new strategy adopted by WhatsApp??

WhatsApp Lags Behind Key Players in Messenger App Payment Domain

This new ad on feature emerged not with much surprise. We stand to witness a time where roles and functions get juggled up. WhatsApp for business and WhatsApp digital payment services are few such examples we can cite here.

The World Wide Web is one big platform with myriad opportunities for the players to harness and optimize to their personal benefit. Mobile technology with its web space connectivity has come up as an extra topping for the key players, each fighting a cut throat battle to instantly grab on any rising occasion. Social media platform is one such lucrative topping drawing big companies to bank on the multiple options offered and to socialize with its huge consumer base, a new face of modern marketing. Online socialization is the ongoing trend. Users prefer to be more actively verbal in a social messenger app rather than indulging in any form of face-to-face conversation.

Recent times again witness a sudden change in the role of the many instant messenger applications. Facebook, Hike and Facebook owned WhatsApp are trying to render a more optimized role to the popular messenger platform extending it into messenger app payment domain and WhatsApp business solution.

However, the popular instant messenger is slightly diffident when it comes to new future updates and services. Though we have seen many new updates making their way into the messaging application pretty recently and it has already announced a possible plan to launch an extension catering to business firms sometime later this year. It somehow got left behind Facebook and Hike messenger in the e wallet messenger domain.

Allow me to brief you on the other key players that have successfully incorporated the messenger app payment option into their framework.

Let us begin our study with Hike messenger:

India centric mobile messaging service Hike took a major step to imitating the Chinese owned WeChat app introducing the messenger mobile payment service. Hike has struggled to withstand its grip over Indian market, continuously receiving threats from the ever popular WhatsApp instant messenger. This strategic move by Hike just proved that it has managed to beat the popular chat app in this sector. This step has kicked off with offering peer-to-peer and bank-to-bank payment options, the former being an in-app wallet and the latter emerged as a service backed by India’s government-supported UPI payment system. Another feature, ‘blue packet’ allows users to gift digital envelopes of cash for special occasions, like birthdays. Moreover, users have phone bills payment and recharge options, with Yes Bank stimulating such features.

Now let us have an understanding of Facebook’s new ad on payments within messenger feature.

The person-to-person messenger payment feature has first entered the market way back in the year of 2015, allowing users to pay either everyone in the group or individual members through a click on the payments icon (the dollar sign). User can also request payments from the group right within their chat, an easy method to raise funds supporting any cause.

Gradually Facebook has expanded its digital payment service to its other messaging application, WhatsApp.

So what does WhatsApp digital payment services actually do??

Indian market is the first choice for Facebook owned WhatsApp to bring forth the many new app features such as the much talked about extended feature catering to small scale business needs that is about to enter the market in the near future. The founding fathers are searching ways to contribute to the PM’s vision for digitalizing India. E messenger wallet is that measured step undertaken towards the shared vision.

Facilitating payments via the instant messenger is the primary objective for WhatsApp.

The chat messenger is in conversation with Indian banks that includes State Bank of India to allow bank-to-bank transfers via UPI (Unified Payments Interface). It has also initiated discussions with National payments Corporation of India (NCPI) as per Economic Times report.

Wrapping Up

No doubt WhatsApp got late to venture out into the e transaction domain compared to its rival Hike yet it is not lagging way behind. The measured step undertaken is likely to give cold shivers to the already popular indigenous e wallets like Paytm and Mobiwik and stand to challenge Hike messenger’s move as well. Considering the wide user base, it is highly unlikely the rivals can withstand the growing popularity of the messenger, if at all, WhatsApp payment service managed to get attuned with its many fan followers.

Probably such strategic steps may have given rise to rumors that Paytm, in turn, is developing ambitious plans to emerge as an amalgamation of messenger and e wallet application pretty soon.

We are yet to witness who will finally win the rat race in the near future???