WhatsApp Business app hits over 3 million users, says Facebook

Over 3 million people are actively using WhatsApp Business app, says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

He said this during the social media giant's Q1 2018 earnings call, the VentureBeat reported late on Wednesday.

WhatsApp Business, a standalone app separate from the other version of WhatsApp used by 1.5 billion people, was launched in January for Android users in six countries including India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Britain and the US.

WhatsApp Business competes with services like Apple's Business Chat and RCS messaging for Android and Facebook's own Messenger Platform, chat apps all built around connecting businesses with customers.

While WhatsApp Business is still being rolled out, conversational commerce through things like payments on Messenger will also be important to the social media giant, the report said.

"Over the next five years we're focused on building out the business ecosystems around our apps like Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger," Zuckerberg said.

"I think what you're going to start to see are people interacting with Pages that you follow, Pages on Facebook or Instagram.

"You see content from that Page, and you can click through to a message thread, and then you can either get customer support or complete a transaction or do a follow-on transaction, and that will be very valuable for businesses so we view the payment in that context, not as the goal but as something that's helping the business and the person succeed at having a transaction or doing what they're trying to do," Zuckerberg noted.

WhatsApp Business, available on Google Play Store, makes it easier for companies to connect with customers, and more convenient for its users to chat with businesses that matter to them.

The new app, which is yet to come on Apple App Store in India, asks for a separate phone number from the one users have for their individual WhatsApp account.