Whatsapp status ads are coming in 2020

WhatsApp status ads are coming, likely sometime in 2020, say analysts at eMarketer. This would be a major change for the chat app which has so far remained ad-free.

Whatsapp status ads are coming in 2020WhatsApp has 340 million users, according to eMarketer senior analyst Jasmine Enberg. In terms of user penetration among smartphone users, Brazil, Argentina and India are the top three markets, where more than 90% of smartphone users in each country will use WhatsApp this year.

At 68.1 million, the US is in third place for WhatsApp users, but that is just 7.7% of the total number of WhatsApp users in 18 countries tracked by eMarketer. That’s because widespread use of SMS, Facebook Messenger and iMessage have held back WhatsApp adoption.

eMarketer expects the number of US Facebook Messenger users this year will be close to double that of WhatsApp users 117.6 million versus 68.1 million.

However, the two apps are not mutually exclusive. Four of the top 10 countries for WhatsApp status user penetration among smartphone users in 2019 Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Italy are also among the top 10 countries for Messenger user penetration. 

The total number of messaging app users will grow 12.1% this year to reach 2.52 billion people, according to eMarketer forecasts. That means 87.1% of smartphone users worldwide will use a mobile messaging app at least once per month in 2019.