WhatsApp opens chat with e-tailers

Company tying up with firms across categories to be like China's WeChat

Anything from flight tickets to delivery updates by e-commerce companies would soon land in your WhatsApp inbox, as the American chat major is broadening its focus. What had started as an instant messaging and online chat service on smartphones, mostly for the young, some eight years ago is now turning towards businesses in a big way to monetise the platform. For that, Mountain View (California)-headquartered WhatsApp is clearly tapping the India market with over 200 million active users.

The world’s largest chat application has already entered into tie-ups with travel portals such as MakeMyTrip and Goibibo in India. It is planning to add e-commerce firm Flipkart on its platform, too, according to sources. 

The company, owned by Facebook, is also in talks with several electricity boards, telecom players, movie ticketing firms, government utility agencies as well, so that users can pay bills and use service assistance via the chat app. 

The idea is to make WhatsApp a full service ecosystem—from utility to entertainment, leisure to business — hinging on its chat feature, a source pointed out. And, users can access the services and pay on the platform itself via its wallet, which it is all set to launch. It will compete with the likes of Paytm once it launches the wallet. According to industry experts, the American company with over 1 billion users worldwide is keen to replicate China’s WeChat model. 

WhatsApp did not reply to an email sent by Business Standard.

While looking to earn from its messaging service, it’s targeting to add services that could be monetised. Besides, the company is working on solutions for enabling businesses to use its platform to connect with consumers.

Last year, WhatsApp had said it would test tools that allowed users to communicate with businesses and organisations, like banks and airlines, through its platform.

“Today WhatsApp is a well-accepted medium with Indian smartphone users spending significant time for chat, calls as well as media sharing. When it takes the role of an aggregator of services with a payment mechanism, it has the potential to bring in a new dimension to internet commerce, and competition to the aggregator business of payment wallets,” Sreedhar Prasad, Partner- E Commerce, KPMG in India, said.

MakeMyTrip and its partner company Goibibo have already started using WhatsApp for delivering a variety of services. “We thought sending air tickets, hotel booking confirmation, on email or SMS might not be the only way to deliver value to our customers. To strengthen delivery of our e-tickets and vouchers and to create an experience that is easy and more convenient for our customers, Goibibo is testing an integration with WhatsApp enterprise solution to send all the above and more,” a Goibibo executive said. In February, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton met Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to discuss ways in which it could contribute to India’s vision for digital commerce.

WhatsApp’s biggest competition in India, Hike, is also planning to launch similar services and has already started its wallet on the platform. However, experts said that WhatsApp needed to keep its services uncluttered or it might lose its user base.