WhatsApp, Meta’s messaging app that tens of millions of Indians depend on every day, is going through a crucial second in India as current authorities instructions threaten to disrupt how the platform works for on a regular basis customers and companies.
Issued late final month and made public earlier this month, the instructions ask sure app-based communication providers to maintain accounts repeatedly linked to an lively SIM card and impose stricter controls on how the apps perform throughout gadgets.
New Delhi says the measures are geared toward curbing rising cyber fraud in India, the world’s most populous nation. Digital advocacy teams, coverage consultants, and business teams representing main digital platforms — together with Meta — have warned, nevertheless, that the strategy dangers regulatory overreach and will disrupt official use, particularly in a rustic the place WhatsApp has developed into on a regular basis infrastructure for private communication and small-business commerce.
The instructions, which app suppliers together with Meta, Telegram, and Sign should adjust to inside 90 days of their issuance on November 28, require messaging apps to stay tied to the SIM card used at sign-up. The online and desktop variations of those apps additionally require customers to sign off each six hours and re-link their gadgets by way of a QR code to regain entry.
“Mandatory continuous SIM–device binding and periodic logout ensure that every active account and web session is anchored to a live, KYC-verified SIM, restoring traceability of numbers used in phishing, investment, digital arrest, and loan scams,” the telecom ministry mentioned in a press launch earlier this month, including that India suffered cyber-fraud losses exceeding ₹228 billion (about $2.5 billion) in 2024 alone.
The Indian authorities has clarified that the foundations don’t apply when the SIM stays within the machine, and the consumer is roaming.
Whereas the instructions apply broadly to main prompt messaging apps, their affect is more likely to be felt most acutely by WhatsApp, which is utilized by greater than 500 million individuals in India. The app’s adoption in India can be unusually deep. As a lot as 94% of WhatsApp’s Indian month-to-month consumer base opened the app every day in November, whereas 67% of WhatsApp Business customers within the nation did the identical, based on Sensor Tower information shared with TechCrunch. By comparability, 59% of WhatsApp month-to-month customers within the U.S. opened the app every day, alongside 57% for WhatsApp Business.
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Many retailers in India depend on the WhatsApp Business app — a smartphone-based model of the service tailor-made for small enterprises — usually registering the account on a SIM-linked telephone whereas dealing with buyer conversations by WhatsApp’s internet or desktop shopper on one other machine. In contrast to bigger corporations that use WhatsApp’s Business APIs for automated, CRM-linked communication, these small companies entry their prospects by WhatsApp Business and its companion internet interface, that means necessary SIM binding and frequent pressured logouts may break workflows for order-taking, assist, and buyer engagement.
The potential disruption in India comes as WhatsApp has been steadily increasing its multi-device and companion-device capabilities, permitting customers and companies to remain logged in throughout telephones, browsers, and gadgets with out counting on a single lively smartphone.
Fast enlargement to deep entrenchment
The instructions come as WhatsApp is present process a big shift in India, its greatest market, with progress more and more pushed by retaining present customers reasonably than quickly increasing its new consumer base.
WhatsApp’s month-to-month lively customers in India on cellular gadgets are up 6% year-over-year within the fourth quarter so far, at the same time as downloads have fallen practically 49%, per Sensor Tower information shared with TechCrunch. In contrast with late 2022, WhatsApp’s month-to-month lively customers in India are up 24%, whereas downloads are down 14% over the identical interval, the market intelligence agency mentioned.
“It could be fair to say that user (MAU) growth for WhatsApp in India across the past few years has been driven more by retention (successfully re-engaging existing or previous users) than acquiring new users,” mentioned Abraham Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower.
Information from Appfigures reveals WhatsApp Business has persistently recorded extra estimated first-time installs than WhatsApp Messenger in India since early 2024, reflecting how progress has more and more been pushed by service provider adoption reasonably than broad-based client enlargement.
A part of that sample displays how WhatsApp is utilized in India, mentioned Randy Nelson, head of insights at Appfigures. It is not uncommon for retailers to take care of separate WhatsApp identities for private and buyer communication, usually enabled by dual-SIM telephones, whereas a single enterprise can generate a number of installs throughout employees and store gadgets.
Sensor Tower information factors in the identical path. WhatsApp Business month-to-month lively customers in India have been nonetheless rising 12 months over 12 months in late 2025 and are up greater than 130% in contrast with 2021, far outpacing WhatsApp Messenger’s roughly 34% progress over the identical interval, the market intelligence agency’s information estimates.
Whereas total engagement stays increased on WhatsApp — with Indian customers opening the app every day and spending a median of 38 minutes a day in November, in contrast with 27 minutes on WhatsApp Business — the hole seems to be totally different within the U.S., the place customers spent about 23 minutes a day on WhatsApp and 27 minutes on WhatsApp Business, Sensor Tower estimates present.
India’s instructions elevate “serious questions of technical feasibility”
In a press release final week, business physique Broadband India Discussion board (BIF), whose members embody Meta, mentioned the measures may end in “material inconvenience and service disruption on ordinary users,” including that they elevate “serious questions of technical feasibility.”
The instructions hinge on a brand new and still-contested classification of Telecommunication Identifier Person Entities (TIUEs) underneath India’s telecom cybersecurity guidelines, mentioned Kazim Rizvi, founding director of New Delhi-based public coverage suppose tank The Dialogue, successfully putting messaging apps inside a telecom framework — a shift from their conventional regulation underneath the nation’s IT Act — by govt instructions reasonably than formal laws.
“The directions derive their power not from statute but from delegated legislation,” Rizvi instructed TechCrunch. “Moreover, the lack of public consultations or technical working groups risks creating compliance friction without addressing the underlying fraud vectors.”
India’s telecom ministry didn’t reply to a request for feedback.
For now, corporations together with Meta have restricted room to problem the instructions in courtroom, based on tech coverage consultants.
Difficult the instructions would usually require displaying both that they exceed the scope of the underlying legislation or that they violate constitutional protections, mentioned Dhruv Garg, a tech coverage advisor and accomplice on the Indian Governance and Coverage Undertaking — a excessive bar that could be troublesome to fulfill on this case.
Meta declined to touch upon this text.
