Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 for $ 19 billion, the year the company's total revenue reached less than $ 12 billion. At the time, the application had 500 million users worldwide.
Four years back, WhatsApp already has 1.5 billion users and growth is non-stop. But it is still unprofitable. Over the past few years, Mark Zuckerberg's conglomerate has tried to change it. The newest bet is exactly in the ad model that made Facebook one of the most valuable companies in the world.
WhatsApp will soon start running ads, starting with the iOS app. Ads will appear between the status, and a full-screen summary of images and videos that disappear after 24 hours. This feature was copied from Snapchat in 2017 and today has more than 450 million users a day.
Surely nobody will like this new feature, but the fact is that Facebook needs to make money using WhatsApp. After four years of spending $ 19 billion with the application does not make any profit, the cost only, not easy to explain to investors and shareholders.
Before it was bought by Facebook, WhatsApp had a business model. It imposed an application for $ 1 a year, but almost no one paid for it. It's like the free trial period for WinRAR that never ends.
Since 2016, WhatsApp has abandoned its actual cost of US $ 1 per year. In a recent interview with Forbes magazine, Brian Acton, co-founder of the program, revealed that he insisted that Facebook maintain a billing model rather than betting on ads.
In recent years, Facebook has started testing paid versions of WhatsApp and its technology, just for companies. In January this year, the company launched WhatsApp Business, a tool that allows companies to communicate with their customers more easily, quickly and professionally.
For small businesses, WhatsApp Business is free. For large companies, Facebook has a paid feature since August and is an API for the app. However, companies can respond to customers more efficiently and add different features to the application experience.
All this is new and it is too early to say whether it will work or not. Ads must first appear in 2019, and based on user feedback, the platform may change. In addition, WhatsApp Business paid resources are recent and revenue figures are not yet disclosed.
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