WhatsApp's biggest market is becoming its toughest test

India, the largest market for WhatsApp, is posing a significant challenge to the Meta-owned messaging platform. New directives from the Indian government are creating potential disruptions for both individual users and businesses that rely on the app daily.

The new rules, made public earlier this month after being issued in late November, require app-based communication services to maintain continuous links between accounts and active SIM cards. They also impose stricter controls on cross-device functionality.

According to New Delhi, these measures are designed to combat the rise of cyber fraud within India, which is now the world's most populous nation. That said, the reality is a bit more complicated. digital advocacy groups, policy experts, and industry groups representing major digital platforms, including Meta, are raising concerns. They warn that this approach risks regulatory overreach, potentially disrupting legitimate use of WhatsApp, particularly in a country where it has become essential infrastructure for personal communication and small business commerce.

The directives, which apply to messaging apps like Meta's WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, mandate that apps remain tied to the SIM card used during initial sign-up. These companies have 90 days from the November 28th issuance to comply. Furthermore, the web and desktop versions of these apps will require users to log out every six hours and re-link their devices via QR codes to maintain access.

India's telecom ministry stated in a press release that mandatory continuous SIM-device binding and periodic logouts will ensure that every active account and web session is linked to a live, KYC-verified SIM. The ministry asserts this will restore traceability of numbers used in phishing, investment, digital arrest, and loan scams. They added that India suffered cyber-fraud losses exceeding ₹228 billion (approximately $2.5 billion) in 2024 alone.

The Indian government has clarified that these rules will not apply when the SIM remains in the device and the user is roaming.

While the directives apply to several instant messaging apps, WhatsApp, with its user base of over 500 million in India, is likely to feel the impact most acutely. WhatsApp's adoption in India is exceptionally high. Data from Sensor Tower indicates that 94% of WhatsApp's Indian monthly user base opened the app daily in November, with 67% of WhatsApp Business users doing the same. In comparison, only 59% of WhatsApp monthly users in the U.S. opened the app daily, and 57% for WhatsApp Business.

Many Indian merchants depend on the WhatsApp Business app, a smartphone-based version tailored for small enterprises. These businesses typically register their accounts on a SIM-linked phone while managing customer conversations through WhatsApp's web or desktop client on another device. Unlike larger companies using WhatsApp's Business APIs for automated communication, these small businesses rely on WhatsApp Business and its web interface to connect with customers. Consequently, mandatory SIM binding and frequent forced logouts could significantly disrupt workflows for order-taking, support, and customer engagement.

The potential disruption in India coincides with WhatsApp's ongoing expansion of its multi-device and companion-device capabilities. These features allow users and businesses to remain logged in across multiple devices without needing a single active smartphone.

From Rapid Expansion to Deep Entrenchment

The new directives arrive as WhatsApp experiences a shift in India. Its growth is now driven more by retaining existing users than by rapidly expanding its user base. According to Sensor Tower data, WhatsApp's monthly active users in India on mobile devices have increased by 6% year-over-year in the fourth quarter to date, even as downloads have fallen by nearly 49%. Compared to late 2022, WhatsApp's monthly active users in India are up 24%, while downloads are down 14% over the same period.

According to Abraham Yousef, a senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower, WhatsApp's user growth in India over the past few years has been driven more by retention—successfully re-engaging existing or previous users—than by acquiring new users.

Data from Appfigures reveals that WhatsApp Business has consistently recorded more estimated first-time installs than WhatsApp Messenger in India since early 2024. This trend reflects how growth has been increasingly fueled by merchant adoption rather than broad-based consumer expansion.

Randy Nelson, head of insights at Appfigures, notes that this pattern reflects how WhatsApp is used in India. It is common for merchants to maintain separate WhatsApp identities for personal and customer communication, often using dual-SIM phones. Additionally, a single business can generate multiple installs across staff and shop devices.

Sensor Tower data supports this observation. WhatsApp Business monthly active users in India were still growing year-over-year in late 2023 and are up more than 130% compared with 2021, far outpacing WhatsApp Messenger's roughly 34% growth over the same period.

While overall engagement remains higher on WhatsApp—with Indian users opening the app daily and spending an average of 38 minutes a day in November, compared with 27 minutes on WhatsApp Business—the gap is different in the U.S. Sensor Tower estimates show that users in the U.S. spent about 23 minutes a day on WhatsApp and 27 minutes on WhatsApp Business.

Questions of Technical Feasibility

In a statement last week, the Broadband India Forum (BIF), whose members include Meta, stated that the measures could cause "material inconvenience and service disruption on ordinary users" and raise "serious questions of technical feasibility."

Kazim Rizvi, founding director of The Dialogue, a public policy think tank based in New Delhi, explained that the directives hinge on a new and still-contested classification of Telecommunication Identifier User Entities (TIUEs) under India's telecom cybersecurity rules. This effectively places messaging apps within a telecom framework—a shift from their traditional regulation under the country's IT Act—through executive directions rather than formal legislation.

According to Rizvi, the directions derive their power not from statute but from delegated legislation. He added that the lack of public consultations or technical working groups risks creating compliance friction without addressing the underlying fraud vectors.

India's telecom ministry has not yet responded to requests for comments.

Tech policy experts suggest that companies like Meta currently have limited options to challenge the directives in court.

Dhruv Garg, a tech policy advisor and partner at the Indian Governance and Policy Project, stated that challenging the directions would typically require demonstrating that they either exceed the scope of the underlying law or violate constitutional protections—a high bar that may be difficult to meet in this case.

Meta declined to comment for this article.