Shillong, September 15: Meta has refuted a report suggesting that it intends to introduce advertisements in WhatsApp, the messaging platform with over 2 billion global users, including 500 million in India.
In response to a Financial Times report claiming that Meta teams were exploring the addition of ads to WhatsApp in pursuit of increased revenue, Will Cathcart, Head of WhatsApp at Meta, clarified that the report is untrue.
Cathcart stated, “We aren’t doing this (exploring ads). Also, it looks like you misspelled Brian’s (WhatsApp Co-founder Brian Acton) name.”
The report had indicated that Meta was looking to enhance its advertising revenue after experiencing challenges due to macroeconomic uncertainty.
While some earlier reports had suggested the possibility of WhatsApp introducing ads to improve monetization, WhatsApp, unlike Instagram (acquired by Facebook in 2012), currently does not display ads.
According to CNBC, nearly a decade after acquiring WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, Meta is still striving to transform the messaging app into a significant source of revenue. To achieve this, WhatsApp needs more large businesses globally to adopt it as a primary channel for customer communication.
WhatsApp Business has seen significant growth, with over 200 million monthly active users worldwide, up from 50 million in 2020. Businesses will soon be able to publish ads directly to Facebook or Instagram from the app, with no need for a Facebook account, according to Mark Zuckerberg.
Meta is also testing the capability for businesses to send personalized messages to multiple customers for a fee.
Mark Zuckerberg recently launched WhatsApp Channels in India and over 150 other countries. WhatsApp Channels enable users to receive updates from individuals and organizations in a private and one-way broadcast format within WhatsApp.
