Messaging is massive in Asia. There are 10 billion messages each month on Facebook Messenger between people and businesses. In Asia Pacific alone 87% of people with smartphones use a messaging app at least once a month.
On WhatsApp there are 1.5 billion people active each month, on Messenger 1.3 billion and on Instagram 1 billion.
These numbers are “really staggering” and “pretty powerful”, said Meghan Joseph, client partner, travel, Asia Pacific for Facebook.
“Asia Pacific (APAC) is very exciting for WhatsApp. Both our largest markets globally are in APAC – India and Indonesia that have super high penetration rate,” she revealed.
“We also see the addition of conversational commerce – the whole activity of people communicating with business over messaging was actually born here in APAC. We observe that in Thailand, Indonesia, India and other emerging markets many businesses don’t even have a website, instead exclusively operating via Facebook page or messaging app.”.
The messaging momentum is also expected to grow. The number of people in APAC who use a mobile app monthly is forecast to increase from 1.27 billion this year to 1.68 billion in 2021.
LINE has equally impressive numbers, with over 200 monthly ‘acttive’ users and 77% use it daily.
In July this year LINE Corporation acquired a 34% equity in Venture Republic and rebranded to LINE TRAVEL jp, the first travel business to align with a messaging app.
“There are so many functionalities that LINE can offer that many companies cannot afford to have,” said Kei Shibata, CEO of LINE TRAVEL jp & Trip101.
Apart from Japan, the app has dominant market share in Taiwan (100% of Internet users use it), Thailand and Indonesia, as well as deep local reach. Said Shibata, “It’s a combination of our metasearch services and we can do way more than we have been doing in the past, with tremendous opportunity to not only get more users but also the product features and services they have to offer such as payment and location data”.
LINE TRAVEL.jp’s Kei Shibata (left) and Facebook’s Meghan Joseph discussing messaging’s growing popularity.
On what other services and functionalities WhatsApp can roll out that could be interesting for travellers, Joseph said: “We launched the WhatsApp business API earlier this year, which means business solutions are available for enterprises enabling users to send notifications as well as hanld customers care.
“We see big uptake in the travel business onboarding. Singapore Airlines is the first Asian airline to opt for WhatsApp in sending flight notifications via the app.”
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and WhatsApp have partnered to allow the airline’s customers to check in flights, receive gate notification and get boarding pass download. “It’s a two-way customer support and improve the customer experience.”
LINE has started a commerce division and is working with Uniqlo to distribute coupons to its users, helping to bring them to the Japanese casual wear manufacturer and retailer’s offline shops.
What trends do they see in conversational commerce?
Joseph: “WhatsApp is still very customer service focused with its API launched only in July this year. Messenger is more mature and sees greater depth of interaction. For example, Air Mexico has a Messenger bot and handles thousands of queries through it each month with 96% without any human interaction.
Shibata: “With LINE we can provide a very powerful service to users who are in-destination. As the app knows where the users are, we can send recommendations for places to visit or to eat. It also has real time weather data; if it rains it can suggest indoor activities. We are getting ready to work with tours and activities next year.”
On what they see when they look through the looking glass, Joseph replied: “We see, through internal research, people prefer messaging in business (64%) compared to calling or emailing; More and more people are messaging each day; this is dynamic and here to stay. What we see is more businesses onboarding.”
Shibata: “When a messaging app embraces travel it accelerates consolidation.”
• Featured image credit: Shoot My Travel
