WhatsApp Tips: WhatsApp has taken away the sleep of Jio-Airtel-Vi! Made this big service free, these people will benefit..
WhatsApp has made customer service messaging free for businesses on its platform, making it the cheapest channel for enterprise communication. The move is aimed at enhancing AI chatbot interactions and increasing its market share in India, which is currently dominated by traditional SMS. WhatsApp's new pricing model is aimed at further growing India's enterprise messaging market, which is valued at around Rs 2,500 crore. According to industry estimates, traditional SMS holds about 90% volume share with 55-60 billion texts per month. At the same time, WhatsApp reportedly has a 30% value share.
The body representing India's top three telecom companies - Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone-Idea is the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). In a letter to the telecom ministry, COAI has accused global technology giants such as Microsoft and Amazon of 'potentially bypassing legal telecom pathways' by using WhatsApp to send enterprise messages to customers. The letter claims that this is likely to result in an annual revenue loss of Rs 3,000 crore to both the Centre and service providers.
To tackle WhatsApp, Google introduced an alternative mobile phone messaging system in the country, aimed at weakening WhatsApp's strong hold on customer communication. Vodafone Idea (Vi) recently partnered with Google to offer Rich Communication Service (RCS) messaging to Indian enterprise customers. Industry insiders predict that Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel may follow soon.
WhatsApp's free messages for businesses
It is worth noting that this is the second time in six months that WhatsApp has cut rates. In August, WhatsApp had reduced its prices for business messaging by 16-97% in different global markets to tackle growing competition from Google's RCS and Apple's upcoming entry in the sector. As per the June announcement, the price cut in India was 63%.
"Starting November 1, 2024, we are making service communications free," WhatsApp's parent company Meta announced on its website. Earlier, WhatsApp charged Rs 0.25 per message in India for service messages such as queries on order status or flight ticket rescheduling. In comparison, SMS costs between Rs 0.12-0.15 and Google's RCS (Rich Communication Services) costs Rs 0.20-0.25.
Rs 2,500 crore market and growing
So far, WhatsApp has not been able to see big growth in its volume market share even after the price cut. This is partly due to regulations that require banks and government departments to use SMS for all transactional messages. But that could change as WhatsApp will also make utility messages (account updates, transaction alerts) free from April 2025. This could have a significant impact on SMS, where currently 80% of volumes fall in the utility category.
The enterprise messaging market, worth about Rs 2,500 crore by March 31, 2023, is set to grow even further. As businesses rely more and more on digital payments and e-commerce, this scope is also expanding.
