Introduction of goods purchase and cloud hosting services in WhatsApp

Facebook has been considering various ways to monetize WhatsApp for a long time but has not been successful so far.

But now Facebook has announced the launch of in-app purchases and hosting services for its Zipper-owned messaging app, the world’s most popular messaging app, to boost revenue while consolidating the company’s e-commerce infrastructure.

Keep in mind that Facebook bought WhatsApp for 19 billion dollars in 2014 but has not yet been able to make it a source of income.

But now with the provision of new services businesses will be able to sell their goods through Facebook Shops within WhatsApp.

The online store was introduced in May this year with the aim of integrating shopping across all Facebook apps.

Facebook is also now venturing into the cloud computing sector and allowing companies using its messaging tools to store their messages on Facebook servers.

WhatsApp Chief Operating Officer Matt Adema said in an interview that the shopping tool will start rolling out this year, while the message hosting service will be available in 2021.

He added that the hosting service will be provided free of charge to attract new customers willing to pay for its enterprise tools, which will charge 5 to 9 cents per message.

Millions of small businesses are already connecting with their customers on WhatsApp.

According to Matt Adema, 17.5 million people contact a business on WhatsApp every day.

He said that compared to Facebook, the revenue on WhatsApp today is modest, but we think the opportunity is huge.

He said that chats from an organization would be told by the new hosting service that they are being stored elsewhere and are not protected by the app’s end-to-end encryption.

It should be noted that Facebook does not currently charge any fee to users of the WhatsApp Business app, but some business messages do.

For example, a fee is charged when companies send a boarding pass or e-commerce receipt to a customer.

It is not yet clear what will be the payment system for purchasing goods on WhatsApp as the WhatsApp payment system has not yet been rolled out globally and where it has, it has been discontinued in Brazil.