For the first time since it launched, WhatsApp is going to start showing advertisements inside the messaging app.
The ads are “rolling out gradually” and will only appear in the Updates tab, where users go to share their status updates, and to see channels or groups that they’re interested in.
So, your personal chats won’t be interrupted by ads – well, for now. Introducing ads gradually is typical for these services, and this could be just the beginning. If you’re a user who primarily uses WhatsApp for direct messaging, you won’t have to see the ads at all.
Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, says 1.5 billion people use the Updates tab daily.
What sort of ads are they?
There’ll be three types of ads: status updates from advertisers within the Status section; promoted channels to help channel admins get more visibility; and subscription-based exclusive updates for users who want to receive alerts from specific channels.
Meta says it’ll use limited information to determine which ads to show to users. That includes the country code, age, language settings on the device and general location. However, it reiterates that personal messages and calls remain end-to-end encrypted.
Meta bought WhatsApp for $19.3 billion in 2014 and first announced plans for ads in Status back in November 2018. The company says the implementation has been designed with privacy in mind.
It won’t sell or share your phone number with marketers and will anonymise any personal information before it is shared with advertisers for targeting purposes.
However, this move into advertising may tarnish WhatsApp’s reputation as a secure messaging platform. It could also give iMessage the upper hand for iOS users in countries where WhatsApp is more popular. Apple recently introduced a load of new iMessage features in the iOS 26 update, including customisable backgrounds – a feature plucked directly from other services like WhatsApp.
Opinion
WhatsApp is my messaging app of choice, and I never open iMessage or anything else. I don’t do this becuase of a particular feature I love, it’s just that everyone else I know uses it. iMessage has massive popularity in the US, but in the UK it feels – at least to me – that WhatsApp is the default messaging service for most people.
No one likes ads, especially in a product that has previously not had them. At least it’s good news thst they won’t inside chats now, although whether that changes down the line remains to be seen.
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