Netflix in talks with WhatsApp to grow the former’s user base

 

 

Netflix is looking forward to testing WhatsApp Business integration in India to communicate with its subscribers. The integration will help to send messages and personalized content suggestion to subscribers through notification. WhatsApp will help Netflix to grow its user base, and most importantly engage effectively with them. Netflix till now has been sending the content suggestion to its subscribers through email or text message.

 

Facebook had hitherto kept WhatsApp out of the revenue-churning loop, but is now considering to monetize it through WhatsApp Business. It will essentially allow small businesses to send targeted messages and videos.

 

Online ticketing brand BookMyShow had announced in the same month that it is one of the brands in India participating in the WhatsApp business pilot. MakeMyTrip and Goibibo are some of the brands that are part of this pilot in India. Cab-hailing firm Ola, hotel rooms aggregator OYO and airlines SpiceJet and Indigo are companies, with whom Netflix had held discussion for business collaboration.

 

Currently, WhatsApp is not charging for its services. However, it plans to charge businesses for it. The messaging App is the leading player in the messaging space, followed by Facebook Messenger that crossed a billion monthly users in July and Tencent’s WeChat that has 938 million monthly active users as of May 2017.

 

In India, WhatsApp now has over 200 million active monthly users or over 15 per cent of WhatsApp’s total user base, this year. It is also slated to integrate Unified Payment Interface (UPI) for enabling payment for various services through the app.