WhatsApp’s largest market will be its toughest test | TechCrunch

WhatsApp, Meta’s messaging app that millions of Indians rely on every day, is facing a critical moment in India as recent government guidelines threaten to disrupt the way the platform works for ordinary users and businesses.

Released at the end of last month and made public Earlier this month, the guidelines asked certain app-based communications services to keep accounts continuously linked to an active SIM card and impose stricter controls on how the apps function across devices.

New Delhi says the measures are aimed at curbing rising cyber fraud in India, the world’s most populous country. However, digital advocacy groups, policy experts and industry groups representing major digital platforms – including Meta – have warned that this approach risks overreaching regulations and could disrupt legitimate uses, especially in a country where WhatsApp has evolved into an everyday infrastructure for personal communications and commerce between small businesses.

The directions, which app providers, including Meta, Telegram and Signal, must comply with within 90 days of being issued on November 28, require messaging apps to remain linked to the SIM card used at sign-up. The web and desktop versions of these apps also require users to log out every six hours and re-pair their devices via a QR code to regain access.

“Mandatory continuous binding of SIM devices and periodic logouts ensure that every active account and web session is anchored to a live, KYC-verified SIM, restoring traceability to numbers used in phishing, investment, digital busts and loan scams,” the telecom ministry said in a press release earlier this month, adding that India has suffered cyber fraud losses of over ₹228 billion in 2024 alone. dollars).

The Indian government has made it clear that the rules do not apply if the SIM card remains in the device and the user is roaming.

While the guidelines apply broadly to major instant messaging apps, their impact is likely to be felt most acutely by WhatsApp used by more than 500 million people in India. The app’s adoption in India is also unusually deep. As many as 94% of WhatsApp’s Indian monthly user base opened the app daily in November, while 67% of WhatsApp Business users in the country did the same, according to Sensor Tower data shared with TechCrunch. By comparison, 59% of monthly WhatsApp users in the US opened the app daily, alongside 57% for WhatsApp Business.

Many merchants in India rely on the WhatsApp Business app – a smartphone-based version of the service tailored for small businesses – typically registering the account on a SIM-linked phone while handling customer calls through WhatsApp’s web or desktop client on another device. Unlike larger companies that use this WhatsApp’s business APIs For automated, CRM-linked communications, these small businesses access their customers via WhatsApp Business and its web interface, meaning mandatory SIM binding and frequent forced logouts can disrupt order taking, support and customer engagement workflows.

The potential disruption in India comes as WhatsApp has steadily expanded its multi-device and companion device capabilities, allowing users and businesses to stay logged in across phones, browsers and devices without having to rely on a single active smartphone.

Rapid expansion into deep entrenchment

The direction comes as WhatsApp undergoes a significant shift in India, its largest market, with growth increasingly driven by retaining existing users rather than rapidly expanding its new user base.

WhatsApp’s monthly active users in India on mobile devices are up 6% year-on-year in the fourth quarter so far, while downloads are down nearly 49%, according to Sensor Tower data shared with TechCrunch. Compared to the end of 2022, WhatsApp’s monthly active users in India have increased by 24%, while downloads have fallen by 14% over the same period, the market intelligence agency said.

“It would be fair to say that user growth (MAU) for WhatsApp in India in recent years has been driven more by retention (successfully re-engaging existing or previous users) than by new user acquisition,” said Abraham Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower.

Data from Appfigures shows that WhatsApp Business has consistently recorded more estimated first installs than WhatsApp Messenger in India since early 2024, reflecting how growth is increasingly driven by merchant adoption rather than broad consumer expansion.

Part of that pattern reflects how WhatsApp is used in India, says Randy Nelson, head of insights at Appfigures. It is common for merchants to have separate WhatsApp identities for personal and customer communications, often enabled by dual-SIM phones, while a single company can generate multiple installations on employees and on in-store devices.

Sensor tower data points in the same direction. WhatsApp Business’s monthly active users in India were still growing year on year at the end of 2025 and are up more than 130% compared to 2021, easily outpacing WhatsApp Messenger’s growth of around 34% in the same period, the market intelligence agency’s data estimates.

While overall engagement on WhatsApp remains higher – with Indian users opening the app daily and spending an average of 38 minutes per day in November, compared to 27 minutes on WhatsApp Business – the gap looks different in the US, where users spend around 23 minutes per day on WhatsApp and 27 minutes on WhatsApp Business, Sensor Tower estimates show.

India’s guidance raises “serious questions about technical feasibility”

In a statement last week, industry body Broadband India Forum (BIF), which includes Meta, said the measures could result in “material inconvenience and disruption of service to ordinary users”, adding that they raise “serious questions about technical feasibility”.

The directions hinge on a new and still contentious classification of Telecommunication Identifier User Entities (TIUEs) under India’s telecom cybersecurity rules, said Kazim Rizvi, founder and director of New Delhi-based public policy think tank The Dialogue, effectively placing messaging apps within a telecom framework — a shift from their traditional regulation under the country’s IT law — through executive directions rather than formal legislation.

“The guidelines do not derive their force from law, but from delegated legislation,” Rizvi told TechCrunch. “Additionally, the lack of public consultations or technical working groups risks creating compliance friction without addressing the underlying fraud vectors.”

India’s telecom ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

For now, companies including Meta have limited room to challenge the directions in court, according to technology policy experts.

Challenging the guidelines would generally require showing that they exceed the scope of the underlying law, or that they violate constitutional protections, says Dhruv Garg, a technology policy advisor and partner at the Indian Governance and Policy Project — a high bar that may be difficult to meet in this case.

Meta declined to comment for this article.