WhatsApp, Meta’s messaging app that thousands and thousands of Indians depend on each day, is going through a vital 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 companies to maintain accounts constantly 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 trade teams representing main digital platforms — together with Meta — have warned, nonetheless, that the method dangers regulatory overreach and will disrupt legit use, particularly in a rustic the place WhatsApp has advanced 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 through a QR code to regain entry.
“Obligatory steady SIM–system binding and periodic logout make sure that each lively account and internet session is anchored to a reside, KYC-verified SIM, restoring traceability of numbers utilized in phishing, funding, digital arrest, and mortgage 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 system, and the person is roaming.
Whereas the instructions apply broadly to main instantaneous messaging apps, their influence is prone to be felt most acutely by WhatsApp, which is utilized by greater than 500 million folks in India. The app’s adoption in India can be unusually deep. As a lot as 94% of WhatsApp’s Indian month-to-month person base opened the app each day in November, whereas 67% of WhatsApp Enterprise customers within the nation did the identical, in line with Sensor Tower information shared with TechCrunch. By comparability, 59% of WhatsApp month-to-month customers within the U.S. opened the app each day, alongside 57% for WhatsApp Enterprise.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
Many retailers in India depend on the WhatsApp Enterprise 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 system. Not like bigger corporations that use WhatsApp’s Enterprise APIs for automated, CRM-linked communication, these small companies entry their prospects by WhatsApp Enterprise and its companion internet interface, which means necessary SIM binding and frequent compelled logouts may break workflows for order-taking, help, 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 major shift in India, its greatest market, with progress more and more pushed by retaining current customers relatively than quickly increasing its new person base.
WhatsApp’s month-to-month lively customers in India on cell gadgets are up 6% year-over-year within the fourth quarter so far, whilst downloads have fallen almost 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 might be honest to say that person (MAU) progress for WhatsApp in India throughout the previous few years has been pushed extra by retention (efficiently re-engaging current or earlier customers) than buying new customers,” mentioned Abraham Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower.
Information from Appfigures reveals WhatsApp Enterprise 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 relatively 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’s common for retailers to keep up separate WhatsApp identities for private and buyer communication, typically enabled by dual-SIM telephones, whereas a single enterprise can generate a number of installs throughout workers and store gadgets.
Sensor Tower information factors in the identical route. WhatsApp Enterprise month-to-month lively customers in India have been nonetheless rising yr over yr 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 general engagement stays greater on WhatsApp — with Indian customers opening the app each day and spending a median of 38 minutes a day in November, in contrast with 27 minutes on WhatsApp Enterprise — the hole appears to be like completely different within the U.S., the place customers spent about 23 minutes a day on WhatsApp and 27 minutes on WhatsApp Enterprise, Sensor Tower estimates present.
India’s instructions elevate “severe questions of technical feasibility”
In a press release final week, trade physique Broadband India Discussion board (BIF), whose members embrace Meta, mentioned the measures may end in “materials inconvenience and repair disruption on peculiar customers,” including that they elevate “severe questions of technical feasibility.”
The instructions hinge on a brand new and still-contested classification of Telecommunication Identifier Consumer Entities (TIUEs) below India’s telecom cybersecurity guidelines, mentioned Kazim Rizvi, founding director of New Delhi-based public coverage assume tank The Dialogue, successfully inserting messaging apps inside a telecom framework — a shift from their conventional regulation below the nation’s IT Act — by government instructions relatively than formal laws.
“The instructions derive their energy not from statute however from delegated laws,” Rizvi advised TechCrunch. “Furthermore, the shortage of public consultations or technical working teams dangers creating compliance friction with out 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 court docket, in line with tech coverage consultants.
Difficult the instructions would usually require displaying both that they exceed the scope of the underlying regulation or that they violate constitutional protections, mentioned Dhruv Garg, a tech coverage advisor and associate on the Indian Governance and Coverage Challenge — a excessive bar which may be tough to satisfy on this case.
Meta declined to touch upon this text.
