The 500-million user problem
Half a billion Indians open WhatsApp every day – to gossip, to work, to send money home. It is, by any measure, the most successful digital product in the country’s history. And yet, for Meta, it remains a curiously unprofitable triumph. Payments have failed to scale, commerce is a work in progress, and AI-powered services are still searching for a business model. WhatsApp has won every battle for the Indian user’s attention – except the one that matters to its balance sheet.
