Following the privacy policy update WhatsApp announced and the criticisms that the Facebook-owned company received, a report by analytics firm Sensor Tower claims that WhatsApp’s global installs have fallen by over 40 percent and that people and businesses have begun to look beyond the instant messaging platform as a means of communicating with friends, family, customers, clients, etc. WhatsApp has been in quite a conundrum since it announced its new privacy policy in February of this year. It has faced huge backlashes and pushed people to explore alternatives for the instant messaging app. These alternatives have mainly been Telegram and Signal, as they seem to continue to increase in the number of installs and have seemingly taken over WhatsApp.
“Worldwide installs of WhatsApp’s mobile app declined 43 percent (YoY) for the January to April period”, the report by Sensor Tower revealed. This report, therefore, amplifies the speculation that people have begun to turn their backs on WhatsApp because of its privacy policy that took effect on the 15th of this month. It, therefore, means that since the Facebook-owned company announced the privacy policy, lesser amounts of people are installing it on their phones. “In the first four months of 2021, Telegram’s installs climbed 98 percent year-over-year to more than 161 million, while Signal saw its first-time download surge 1,192% Y/Y to 64.6 million”, Sensor Tower’s report added.
Although WhatsApp’s installs have fallen by almost half, it continues to leads other instant messaging apps with 172.3 million installs. Although the report strongly attributes WhatsApp’s fall to its privacy policy, it, however, highlighted that people had been ditching WhatsApp for other alternatives even before the privacy policy update was ever mentioned. “First-time installs saw a decline around the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, it saw approximately 55.2 million installs globally, down 28 percent M/M from 76.5 million in March”, the report stated.
The whole WhatsApp privacy policy saga started after it was announced that WhatsApp will share some information about users with parent company Facebook.
Even with the brouhaha that stemmed from the privacy policy update, WhatsApp went ahead with allowing the privacy policy take effect, only cancelling its decision to permanently delete the accounts of users who refuse to accept it.
