WhatsApp Denies Report That It Is Considering Showing Ads on Chat Screen

WhatsApp’s prime head on Friday denied a Financial Times report that stated the Meta Platforms-owned messaging platform was exploring ads because it sought to spice up income.

“This @FT story is false. We aren’t doing this,” WhatsApp head Will Cathcart stated in a submit on social media platform X, previously generally known as Twitter.

The report stated that groups at Meta had been discussing whether or not to indicate advertisements in lists of conversations with contacts on the WhatsApp chat display, however no closing choices had been made, citing folks aware of the matter.

FT added that Meta was additionally deliberating whether or not to cost a subscription price to make use of the app ad-free.

In a press release, WhatsApp informed the FT that “we can’t account for every conversation someone had in our company but we are not testing this, working on it, and it’s not our plan at all.”

FT additionally stated many firm insiders had been in opposition to the transfer.

Meta didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.

Facebook purchased WhatsApp, which has at all times been a free chat app, in 2014 for $19 billion.

Meta has already been working to spice up income from WhatsApp. CEO Mark Zuckerberg final 12 months stated that WhatsApp and Messenger would drive the corporate’s subsequent wave of gross sales development, with enterprise messaging “probably going to be the next major pillar” of Meta’s enterprise.

WhatsApp’s Business utility catered to greater than 200 million customers on its platform, as of June this 12 months, a four-fold bounce from about three years in the past.

© Thomson Reuters 2023