Black Friday is approaching, and brands are adopting digital communications channels en masse in anticipation of the busy online shopping season. WhatsApp Usage

Infobip – a global omnichannel communications company – has been monitoring channel trends across their platform, finding WhatsApp growth far surpassing the growth of other channels.

The firm’s data compared the impact of COVID-19 on interactions and their customer base from December 2019 to August 2020. Over this date range, Infobip doubled their WhatsApp customers, with the strongest drivers of growth coming from the retail and finance industries in the Americas and Africa.

Several metrics point to a seismic shift in digital prioritization for brands across the board, and Infobip released its own measurements to back it up:

• Infobip’s WhatsApp customer base has grown 100% in 2020; retail was the leading vertical, with 115% customer growth. WhatsApp Usage
• Infobip’s retail and finance clients saw interaction volumes surge by 150% and 170%, respectively from December 2019 to August 2020.
• Interactions in WhatsApp in December 2019 were 21 million in retail and 19 million in finance; each industry grew to approximately 51 million by August 2020.
• Infobip’s clients in the finance and retail industries saw 130% and 63% growth in monthly active users, respectively. Their overall clientele since the beginning of 2020 saw a 45% increase in the same metric.
• Transportation and logistics companies’ monthly active users understandably shrank with the widespread implementation of travel restrictions.

Shopping, Payments, and Customer Service on WhatsApp

The global pandemic has made clear that businesses need fast and efficient ways to service their customers and make sales. WhatsApp has become a simple and convenient resource in this time. More than 175 million people every day message a WhatsApp Business account. WhatsApp research shows people prefer to message a business to get help and they’re more likely to make a purchase when they can do so.

WhatsApp can help make messaging the best way for consumers and businesses to connect. To that end we are increasing our investment in the following areas:

• • Shopping – We will expand ways for people to check out available products and make purchases right from a chat. WA also wants to make it easier for businesses to integrate these features into their existing commerce and customer solutions. This will help many small businesses who have been most impacted in this time.
  • Facebook Hosting Services – Businesses have varying technology needs and want choice in the companies they work with to host and manage customer communications, particularly with remote work increasing. Which is why over the coming months, WA plans to expand their partnerships with business solution providers they’ve worked with over the last two years.
  • Business Sales – WA will charge business customers for some of the services they offer, which will help WhatsApp continue building a business of their own while WA provide and expand free end-to-end encrypted text, video and voice calling for more than two billion people.

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