[gcb0]

BS!

they have bank accounts and deals with many tel co to operate as they do in each country they are.

you do not get pre-installed on the three biggest mobile operators phones (99.9% of market) and get deals where data to your service do not count as part of the limited data-plan on two of them, by just "being an IP address on the web".

[frostymarvelous]

Right now, it's more of a benefit to phone manufacturers to pre-install whatsapp than it is to whatsapp itself.

Same goes for the telcos. Offering free whatsapp and Facebook is a thing. And it's not because whatsapp had a "deal". It's because the telcos want more users.

Developing countries eat that up. People explicitly want to see whatsapp support or they don't buy the phone and many terrible devices have been sold on this premise.

Source: Experience

[gcb0]

Source: 20+yrs on the online advertising industry.

Nothing that lives of ads or telecomunication companies survive only by "serving the user". The telco only pre-install something on the device if: A. they are paid upfront, B. if they get a percentage of the ads.

yeah, serving the user is good, but remember that you are talking about companies that charges for SMS. the day they have to rely on "pleasing the user" hell will freeze over. They rely on regional monopoly, just like in the US.

[hoppa_liza]

Does not including a popular app preinstalled increase sales?

[gcb0]

not at all. what part of monopoly didn't you get? they already have all the sales.

[frostymarvelous]

We have a clear market leader, but it's by no means a monopoly.

People constantly switch network providers here since we have number portability. My wife, me and many of our friends switched to Vodafone cos they were offering a really great Internet package. Free Whatsapp, Facbook, Twitter, Instagram,and Snapchat plus 3.5 GB for what's essentially $9 a month. Here that's unbeatable and unheard of. http://support.vodafone.com.gh/customer/portal/articles/1813...

I doubt all these services are paying for for Vodafone to do this.

[frostymarvelous]

Luckily, there is serious competition here.

MTN does it, Airtel does it and Vodafone I think does it as a package.

If you currently don't offer some sort of package or free service, you're out of the competition.

[eeeeeeeeeeeee]

Do you have a source for this? Why would bank accounts need to be situated in Brazil for these deals to happen? That doesn't make sense.

[gcb0]

you can pay whats app directly via the operator. e.g. http://www.tim.com.br/sp/para-voce/planos/pre-pago/turbo-wha...

you can't do that in brazil without having the papers to do business there. in fact, you can't even sell anything without the right documents. Just like everywhere else.

[ithkuil]

paying whatsapp?

I don't know portuguese so I didn't actually read what the deal is.

Is this a service where subscribers pay the carrier a fee for 30 days of unlimited data traffic to whatsapp servers (VoIP excluded) + 50M of data ?

If yes, does that constitute a transaction the consumer makes directy to whatsapp via the operator? I understand that likely whatsapp and TIM (an Italian company btw) might have made some deal and exchanged some money for the use of whatsapp logo etc, but I guess that transaction could have been done anywhere.

[gcb0]

tim is Spanish.

the app has in app purchase. that page describes both what you described plus paying for in app purchases via operator

[ithkuil]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIM_(brand)

> TIM is an Italian brand owned by Telecom Italia. Originally founded as a mobile telephony company in 1995

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIM_Brasil

> Parent Telecom Italia Mobile, Telecom Italia