WhatsApp looking at growth opportunities in India’s digital sphere

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton is on a tour of India with the aim of gathering insights from people on ways to make WhatsApp more relevant for the Indian user by contributing to the 'Digital India' initiative of the government.

With over 200 million active users in India, WhatsApp is the popular messaging app for many cellphone users, which makes India the largest market for the Silicon Valley-based firm.

The Facebook-owned company, however, wants to go beyond just being an instant messaging platform and become relevant to more Indians.

Acton said the company was looking at how it can be used in the e-commerce and digital payments segments, among others.

In a meeting with IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Acton is reported to have discussed a number of things, including how WhatsApp can be used for civic engagements, how WhatsApp could be used for e-commerce and digital transactions and payments.

He said while there is enough space for WhatsApp to grow, much research is needed before embarking on any new initiative in India.

WhatsApp, which has over a billion users globally, is now pushing to hit a billion users in India alone, Acton said.

Acton was in New Delhi on Friday where he met union minister for electronics and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad, who described him as a "fine mind in the field of Information technology."

The insights could go into bettering the service and increasing its utility for millions of Indians.

''India is a very important country to us, and we're proud to have 200 million people who use WhatsApp to connect with their friends, family and communities," said Acton in a statement. He added that the company builds every WhatsApp feature to be simple, reliable, and secure, and this vision is in line with what Digital India promises to achieve. "We will continue to invest so we can help more people across India, and we hope to contribute more to India's vision for digital commerce in the future,'' he added.

Acton co-founded Whatsapp with Jan Koum eight year ago on 24 February 2009. Acton, famously was rejected for a job by Facebook but in February 2014, he sold the messaging app to Facebook for $19 billion.

Prasad said that he conveyed to Acton how programmes like Digital India are changing the face of India and making Indians technologically empowered and creating new opportunities.

"I also appreciated the good role of platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp are playing in the field of Digital empowerment. He deeply appreciated all this and assured of more involvement of local language," Prasad added.