The number of Whatsapp users is about to reach 1 billion users, and once that happens, this Facebook-owned company is planning to drop its $0.99 annual subscription fee. Instead of charging for this service, which is usually payable once you’ve used the service for a year, Whatsapp is planning to test out more commercial services which is catered for B2C communication.
However, despite Whatsapp going the B2C way, according to its CEO Jan Koum, they will not be including any ads in the app. So far the only idea they’ve toyed with is maybe offering “test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from.” Some of the companies Koum named were like Bank of America and American Airlines. Hopefully this style of service will not be forgotten for those of us from this side of the globe.
Another thing Whatsapp is doing is adding more encryption tools, however they have not mentioned if they’re planning to charge extra for this service or not.
Source: Tech Crunch
