[markolschesky]

Had no idea that WhatsApp was even a Twilio customer let alone one of its largest.

>We currently generate significant revenue from WhatsApp and the loss of WhatsApp could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.

>In 2013, 2014 and 2015 and the three months ended March 31, 2016, WhatsApp accounted for 11%, 13%, 17% and 15% of our revenue, respectively. WhatsApp uses our Programmable Voice products and Programmable Messaging products in its applications to verify new and existing users on its service. We have seen year-over-year growth in WhatsApp's use of our products since 2013 as its service has expanded and as it has increased the use of our products within its applications.

>Our Variable Customer Accounts, including WhatsApp, do not have long-term contracts with us and may reduce or fully terminate their usage of our products at any time without penalty or termination charges. In addition, the usage of our products by WhatsApp and other Variable Customer Accounts may change significantly between periods.

[hexalisk]

Yes, this is fascinating. I can only imagine that as more and more developers flock to "free" SMS verification services provided by companies like Facebook (Account Kit) and Twitter (Digits), their long term outlook is even more unsure.

[stemuk]

Could you share a link to the Firebase SMS verification you stated in your comment? Was actually looking for something like this... :D

[hexalisk]

Ah, sorry about that -it looks like I misremembered and they don't actually offer that. I'll edit that out so it doesn't mislead more people.

[stemuk]

Sure, no problem! Was just curious, it seemed too good to be true :D

[BinaryIdiot]

That's pretty interesting. Surely WhatsApp has used their leverage to get lower rates with Twilio that others do not get...right? I'm assuming WhatsApp knew to some degree but I wonder if they knew just how high that percentage was.

[jrcii]

I worry that maybe there's a bubble in Silicon Valley created by all these startups being large customers of each other so it's just a bunch of VC money going around in circles.

[callalex]

Isn't lots of capital flowing around the goal of any healthy economy?

[rattray]

Yes, but if the flow is too isolated it's vulnerable to exponential deceleration

[robbiemitchell]

I suspect this will be painful to Twilio in a couple years. If you think anything like WeChat and its service ecosystem is coming to the rest of the world, it's going to happen on Facebook (or Telegram), not WhatsApp.

[jedberg]

Facebook owns Whatsapp. Anything that happens on Facebook will be in conjunction with Whatsapp.

[robbiemitchell]

Right, I'm suggesting FB wants people to end up on Messenger.

[cloudjacker]

Messenger = US, WhatsApp = Rest of the world

Viber = when WhatsApp voice is down during the world cup

[robbiemitchell]

Sort of. WeChat in China, LINE in Japan.

And again, if you look at what WeChat has done with embedded services, and believe that will spread, then you wonder whether it will happen on WhatsApp vs. something else. And I don't see Facebook putting the energy into the automation/interaction platform on WhatsApp that it is going to do on Facebook.

[cloudjacker]

I thought about modifying it to include Asian saturation, but I was thinking more so about Facebook services, of which Viber is not one but an underdog