Whatsapp

In the era of mobile phones SMS text messaging did become the most predominant communication tool. However, having ruined plenty of telecom companies in terms of Short-Messages based incomes, the mobile Application WhatsApp Messenger has become one of the most successful free-of-cost instant messaging application on the market. Founded in 2009 by Jan Koum and Brian Acton, both ex-employees at Yahoo! Inc. who have been working together for a combined twenty years, WhatsApp Messenger goes even beyond messaging, it also includes the exchange of media such as videos, audio files, photos and real-time locations and also involves group texting and voice messaging. Its multi-platform provides access to the mobile app for almost every operation-system available on the Smartphone market like the Apple’s iOS, Blackberry OS, Android and the Windows Phone. In this essay I am going to outline the nature of business of Whatsapp Inc. and how it obtains its revenue as well as a discussion as how the objectives are being fulfilled followed by a critical evaluation and some ideas for the future.

With more than 250 million monthly users (Wallstreet Journal, 2013) and a total of 8 billion inbound messages and 12 billion outbound messages, Whatsapp’s long-term strategy is to create a sustainable, independent company free of any advertisements (CNET, 2013). The reason for not putting up ads on their Application lies back in their career at Yahoo! Inc., working hard to sell ads and improving them by data mining. When developing the app they did not want to end up as another ad clearinghouse, they wanted a product that keeps people awake and reach for in the morning. No one would jump up from their nap to see advertisements. (Whatsapp Blog, 2013). In addition to that, their simply-designed website follows the KISS-Principle as there are barely any extra useless information. Still, whatever is needed to download the app is available on the website.