Ever thought just how a messaging app can make money whilst giving free texting and calling? WhatsApp users within India could be surprised to find out that there's more to messaging apps than communicating. Here's how: by offering services for example digital payments, online shopping and also content.
China's WeChat is just about the ultimate example of the great possibilities that messaging apps hold. With over 900 million monthly active users, WeChat helps them do anything from messaging, buying grocery, hailing cabs, purchasing online food and also offline payments at restaurants - this all without having to go to another app. These kinds of services not just offer the company outstanding customer stickiness, in addition they create a remarkable revenue model.







At the moment, WeChat's rivals outside China including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Viber as well as Line are behind the curve on this front, although some have started on the path to becoming bigger platforms. "The actual reason chat apps are growing beyond communications is to create a lasting monetisation strategy," said Neha Dharia, a senior analyst with a focus on messaging at London-based research firm Ovum. "Chat apps are moving from being just a provider of communication tools chat, voice as well as video) to becoming a platform for the exchange of services, payment mechanisms as well as content consumption."
WhatsApp, the biggest messaging app in the world with 1.3 billion monthly active users, introduced a business version in India early this week. "Based on research, we all know that people are utilizing WhatsApp to speak to businesses.
make business messaging far more convenient for people and more productive for businesses," a WhatsApp representative said in respond to ET's questions. Whatsapp Business is a different app from Whatsapp Messenger, aimed mostly at giving a direct communication platform to small businesses, the majority of who might be using WhatsApp already.

While Whatsapp has kept the service free, it might broaden it to bigger businesses with added features such as analytics, in which it may well charge a usage fee at a later stage, therefore developing a revenue model, segment watchers said. This actually also is geared at increasing subscriber connect that it can leverage for future monetization of its other services. The greater agenda - and a more critical one - for these firms is to get active users to spend much more time on the app or services as well as make it viable for income generation, according to analysts.





"Each and every technology company is vying for consumer stickiness, interaction and also time spent on the app, and in order to keep them within the app's ecosystem they're widening themselves to turn into platforms. Merely being messaging applications that offer cost-free services will not be a strong revenuegeneration model," said Jayanth Kolla, founder of Bengaluru-based research firm Convergence Catalyst.




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