Facebook-owned WhatsApp plans on using India as a testing ground for its business version of the app, Hindustan Times reported on Saturday. Still in its design phase, WhatsApp for Business will allow small businesses to reach out to a large number people on the application’s existing database.
“We built this for India... and the users can give us feedback on how to make this product better, and then we will take it to Brazil and Indonesia,” said Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, on the occasion of the company’s eighth anniversary . He said it was too early to discuss its revenue model. The English daily said Acton had met with Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to negotiate commercial messages and digital transaction features.
Stating that the app is different from business communication platforms Facebook at Work or Slack, Acton said the application aims to assist businesses employing less than 10 staffers. “It will help them manage businesses in an easier manner, whether it is about managing customer contact lists or multi-agent support,” Acton told the Hindustan Times.
WhatsApp for Business is all about small and medium businesses, where you have a small employee count and have a large customer count. The goals are very different,” Acton said while stressing that the company would stick to its simple template. He said, “We have this long-standing theme – no advertisements, no games, and no gimmicks,” Mint reported.
India accounts for 15% of the app’s users with 200 million active monthly users, Mint reported. Facebook had acquired WhatsApp in 2014.
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