Speaking at an event in New Delhi, WhatsApp Vice President Chris Daniels said that the ads would be the service's "primary monetisation mode for the company" and would offer "an opportunity for businesses to reach people." No timeline was given for the change.
WhatsApp Status was launched early last year as a knockoff of the Stories feature found in Instagram and Snapchat. It has since become very popular, even surpassing Snapchat usage. The feature allows you to add a combination of text, photos, and videos to your profile, which are encrypted in the same way as your messages. Status updates are visible to your contacts for 24 hours before they disappear.
WhatsApp's Status feature is similar to Instagram's Stories feature, and lets users add images, text, and video to their profile for 24 hours.
Softpedia News reported in August that WhatsApp will start displaying adverts in the Status screen from 2019.
The confirmation from WhatsApp comes after the company launched its Business API in the same month.
Businesses are able to respond to clients through the API for free for up to 24 hours – after which WhatsApp will charge a fixed rate per message.
