WhatsApp is now allowing businesses to send authentication and login codes to users in India through its API, and the company confirmed that it has enabled the feature in India from July 1.
Meta introduced the ability for retailers to authenticate users from other regions last year, but in June it began allowing these types of messages from organisations in Malaysia and in July from organisations in India.
Last month, the company began applying international authentication rates to activities such as sending login codes to users across borders.
“As we discussed onstage at Conversations last month, we want to empower people and businesses to do more with WhatsApp, including one-time passwords to get login codes and sign in instantly,” a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch.
“By making it easy for individuals and businesses to authenticate their accounts across their preferred apps, WhatsApp will continue to be the best place to conduct business.”
India's revitalization as a market is significant because telecom networks estimate that they send more than 1 billion one-time passwords (OTPs) every day. For WhatsApp, which counts India as its largest market with more than 500 million users, this represents an opportunity to funnel some of those authentication messages onto its platform and charge companies in the process.
WhatsApp has been overhauling its messaging rates for businesses since last year. Authenticated messages are another way for WhatsApp to increase revenue and encourage users to use the app more frequently. Last month, the company also announced a feature that uses AI to design ads to help merchants with customer support in its WhatsApp Business app.