The big question on everyone’s mind, How Does WhatsApp Make Money? Nearly everyone is using the messaging and calling app WhatsApp. They now even have the capability to hold a video call using the app! The good part is that the communication is all free to use. So, naturally, one would ask, where and how does WhatsApp make money?
Initially, WhatsApp had a subscription pay plan that lasted for a year then one had to renew. What this meant was that you could only use WhatsApp for free for one year then start paying yearly a fee in the region of $9.99 unless you change your number and start afresh. These yearly charges were then scrubbed off and so we here to find out how WhatsApp makes money because like any other business out there, money has to come in.
Did you know that WhatsApp was bought for a cool $19 billion by Facebook? Now you know. Zuckerberg and the finance gurus at Facebook must have seen something in the green app to spend that much money on it. Why would they buy an app with no visible profits you ask? We all recall how WhatsApp started out with a plan to charge users $1 per year. Even with the current number of users, getting a dollar from each would not make a giant like Facebook pay out $19 billion for it. Even more puzzling is the fact that WhatsApp went on to charge absolutely nothing for using their app.
How Does WhatsApp Make Money
Truly, there is no free lunch. First off, WhatsApp was a direct competitor to the Messenger app by Facebook. Given that Messenger had ads and WhatsApp did not, people could often choose WhatsApp over Messenger. This meant WhatsApp had a considerable number of users to its name that Facebook could make use of. After Facebook scooped it up, the WhatsApp servers became Facebook servers. So, if you send a message, it goes through the Facebook servers to your recipient. Using complex data algorithms, Facebook mines data from the messages and creates a profile about someone. Trust us when we say that data is way more than the $19 billion the app was bought for.
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Many users have reported seeing people in the same WhatsApp groups show up in their Facebook suggestions even when they share nothing else in common. There, you have it!
