WhatsApp Shifts iOS App to Subscription Model
Mobile messaging app WhatsApp made a big change yesterday. The company (which delivers free SMS-like messages to other WhatsApp users), is said to be moving to an annual subscription model. Where, the first year is free then $1 per year thereafter. While the plan won’t affect current users it will not be without competition.
The biggest selling point thus far with WhatsApp has been the fact that their is no in-app advertising. With ore than 100 million subscribers, and 17 billion messages delivered every-day it is regarded as the most popular alternative messaging service outside of Apple’s own iMessage. Which, last year only mentioned it was handling more than 1 billion message per day. Evidelty, Apple’s messages app has become so popular it was blamed in part for the first-ever decrease in annual SMS messaging last year.
While WhatsApp may be the most notorious of the bunch, alternatives such as Line (which recently passed 100 million users) is seeing tremendous growth in the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese markets – in addition, have also discovered a way to capatalize on their users, and shockingly is now producing more revenue than downloads.
In an interview with a Dutch journalist WhatsApp’s CEO Jan Koum, deflected questions about the timing of he switch, as well as acquisition rumors. Saying that,
“the company has a good relationship with some carriers, despite taking revenue away from their own profitable messaging services, and added that a desktop version was not likely to be forthcoming, nor would streaming video chatting be added any time soon. On the lack of a desktop client,”
Also adding,
“we feel strongly that the world is moving to mobile, and [thus] we want to be mobile-only. Your phone is with you all the time, and the desktop is to many becoming a secondary experience.”
Kevin is an Online and Mobile Marketing Strategist who has worked with companies of all sizes over the last 6 years. You can follow Kevin on any of the social platforms below.
