WhatsApp is one of the most used ubiquitous messaging platforms in the world with nearly 3 billion monthly active users, but did you know that despite this massive user count, WhatsApp doesn’t actually make all that much money?
In fact, WhatsApp is only now crossing the billion-dollar mark in terms of revenue. For perspective, Instagram and Facebook have similar user counts and they pull in $50 billion and $70 billion respectively.
The main reason for this is that Meta simply has no straightforward way of monetizing WhatsApp. And given that its reputation has been shaky over the past couple of years regarding data intrusion and privacy concerns, Meta has preferred to play it safe when it comes to WhatsApp monetization.
Instead of rolling out some sort of large-scale monetization effort, Meta has decided to monetize a completely different WhatsApp user base: businesses.
This has provided Meta with a decent amount of revenue but nothing groundbreaking. This video explains why Meta never monetized WhatsApp and why that may be a fine strategy over the long term.