Messaging giant WhatsApp has said that it is giving up its $1 yearly subscription fee in the upcoming weeks. The announcement was made by Jan Koum, the founder at DLD in Munich in Germany.
WhatsApp crossed the 900 monthly active users figure in September 2015 and was acquired by Facebook two years back. Many of the users were concerned that the social networking giant would look forward to monetize the messaging app with the help of advertising and other means.
But WhatsApp has continued with the same business model since its inception which is free for the first year and a dollar for every year thereafter. On the other hand Koum said that the business model does not work for some people as some of them do not have credit cards. The founder added that the company will now begin experimenting by connecting companies with people but has also admitted that they have not finalized on a plan.
For now it seems like the company will focus towards monetizing from big businesses using WhatsApp to carry out customer service. There are expectations that WhatsApp will be launching accounts specifically for businesses. The conclusion is, by giving up the one dollar fee, it is going to emit other issues with the users who were not able to use WhatsApp.
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