Could WhatsApp Be the Next Big Selling Media Platform?

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta Platforms Inc., assured staff on Thursday that WhatsApp and Messenger will drive the firm’s next wave of revenue growth to ease financial worries following its first round of mass layoffs.

A week after Meta announced it would lay off 11,000 employees, Zuckerberg responded to pointed questions at a company-wide meeting by describing the two messaging apps as being very early in monetizing compared to its advertising juggernauts Facebook (NASDAQ: META) and Instagram, according to comments.

Where Is WhatsApp Headed?

As we seek to monetize WhatsApp and Messenger more, they stated, “We speak a lot about the extremely long-term potential like the meta verse, but the fact is that business messaging is probably going to be the next significant pillar of our company.” Some customers may communicate and do business with businesses via chat applications thanks to Meta, including a new feature on Thursday in Brazil.

Since announcing a long-term goal to develop an immersive metaverse last year, Zuckerberg has substantially invested in extended reality hardware and software. His statements there show a change in tone and emphasis. As Meta’s primary ad business has suffered this year, more than halving its stock price, investors have questioned the prudence of that choice.

According to him, capital expenditures were Meta’s second-largest expense, with the most going to infrastructure to support its family of social networking applications. Personnel costs were Meta’s top expense. Reality Labs received almost 20% of the funding allocated to Meta. According to Zuckerberg, with smart glasses, products continuing to develop over the next several years, and some outstanding AR glasses later in the decade, Reality Labs was spending more than half of its money on AR. In some respects, he added that this work is the most difficult, but I also think it’s the most valuable prospective element of the job over time.