Mark Zuckerberg claims revenue from click-to-message ads has doubled in India

By siliconindia  |  Thursday, 26 October 2023, 11:07:02 AM IST

Mark Zuckerberg claims revenue from click-to-message ads has doubled in India
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared during a call with analysts, that the parent company of Facebook has seen a significant increase in revenue from Click-to-Message ads in India, with a YoY doubling. He also highlighted the potential for business messaging growth for the social networking giant. Zuckerberg further revealed that over 60% of WhatsApp users in India send messages to business app accounts every week. With over 500 million users, India is the biggest market for WhatsApp. As of February 2023, Click-to-Message ads had generated a global revenue run rate of $10 billion.
During the earnings conference call, Zuckerberg said he believes business messaging will be the next major pillar for the company's business, with more than 600 million conversations happening between people and businesses every day on their platforms. Over the past year, Meta has made a big push to monetize its most expensive acquisition, WhatsApp, by ramping up its business offerings, and India has been a key market for driving growth.
Last month, Zuckerberg unveiled a slew of business messaging-focused product features, including in-chat payments and enabled businesses to create customized experiences for customers through WhatsApp Flows at its global Conversations event held in Mumbai. "India is leading the world in terms of how people and businesses embrace messaging". Zuckerberg, who joined the event virtually, had said.
Meta also allowed users of its WhatsApp Business app to create Click-to-WhatsApp ads for Facebook and Instagram without needing a Facebook account. Business messaging has become strategically important for the social networking giant over the past year or so, as it looks to diversify revenue sources beyond traditional digital advertising that took a significant hit in 2022 due to the economic downturn and impact of Apple's iOS privacy policy changes.
Last month, Meta unveiled AI Studio, which enables people to create and interact with lots of different AI characters across its platforms. It will also allow businesses to create AI characters that reflect their brand’s values and improve customer service experiences across their apps. Zuckerberg said they have launched the offering in alpha with select businesses and will roll out more broadly in 2024. "Making business AIs work for more businesses is going to be an important focus for us into 2024", Zuckerberg said.
Meta CFO Susan Li said on the call that they witnessed strong revenue growth from business messaging during the quarter. This drove growth in its "Family of Apps other revenue" segment, which houses the company's non-advertising revenue sources from its suite of apps. Family of App's other revenue was at $293 million in Q3, up 53 percent YoY. Meta reported an overall revenue of $34.1 billion for the quarter, registering a 23 percent increase YoY while the net income jumped 164 percent to 11.6 billion for the quarter.

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