Meta Platforms, Inc. is a global technology company that began as Facebook and has since grown into one of the most expansive digital ecosystems in the world. Its portfolio today stretches across social media, messaging, immersive technologies, and commerce. Facebook, the original platform, remains a central hub for communities, brands and individuals, while Instagram has evolved into a visual-first space that fuels the influencer ecosystem through features like stories, reels, boomerang, edits, and the recently launched text-based companion app, Threads. Further, WhatsApp, one of the most widely used communication tools globally and especially in India, supports personal messaging, calls, media sharing and, increasingly, business interactions. Messenger, a standalone app integrated with Facebook, adds another layer to Meta’s messaging empire.

Beyond virtual networking and messa­ging services, Meta AI has been rolled out in the country, both as a standalone app and integrated into WhatsApp and Instagram, giving users and businesses new tools for search, conversation and customer service. On the business side, Meta runs a powerful advertising network, anchored by Meta Business Suite and the Audience Network, which helps small and large businesses manage campaigns across its platforms. Its commerce efforts are centred on WhatsApp, where features like WhatsApp Business, catalogues and click-to-message advertisements (ads) have gained strong traction. However, global products like Horizon Worlds remain largely absent from the Indian market.

Growth story and monetisation strategies

Meta’s India journey is inseparable from the country’s digital revolution. Facebook arrived just as smartphones were becoming affordable and mobile internet was entering the mainstream. Then came WhatsApp, which rewired the way India communicates. For many, to “send a message” simply became synonymous with “WhatsApping”.

Then, the ban on TikTok in 2020 on national security grounds opened another window of opportunity. Instagram Reels moved quickly to fill the void, and within months, it became the go-to format for short videos. That shift fuelled an entire creator econ­omy. For Meta, this transformed Instagram from a lifestyle app into a marketplace of culture, commerce and advertising dollars.

But for Meta, the challenge in India has never been about relevance. It has always been about revenue. India’s ARPU is among the lowest in the world, meaning ads alone would never close the gap. That is why the company has been steadily reshaping its revenue book around messaging-led commerce.

In September 2025, WhatsApp expanded business features such as AI chat assist­ants, in-app calls and payment hooks designed for small and medium enterprises. Moreover, until recently, WhatsApp carried a strong ad-free ethos. That changed in mid-2025, when Meta began cautiously introducing ads in the app’s Updates tab (the space that houses status and channels), which already attracts around 1.5 billion daily visitors, making it a natural monet­isation surface. Meta already earns billions globally from click-to-message ads, and India is a key market where this model is expected to scale fastest. However, concerns remain about cloud storage outside India, which may not fully meet enterprise-grade audit trails or compliance requirements ­under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act. Meta is working to address these issues, but experts warn it must move quickly as competition intensifies from rivals in the business messaging space.

In parallel, monetisation through payments has stumbled. WhatsApp Pay, after years of waiting for regulatory ­approval, still lags far behind its rivals. National Payments Corporation of India data shows that as of August 2025, PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm handled 9,152.54 million, 7,063.76 million and 1,407.23 million transactions respectively, while WhatsApp Pay managed just 78.21 million. The gap underscores a deeper challenge, that is, turning WhatsApp’s enormous engagement into meaningful commerce in a payments ecosystem already dominated by fintech incumbents.

Meanwhile, Messenger, with roughly 109 million monthly active users (industry estimates as of January) in the country, has long been part of Meta’s advertising machine. Ads have been accepted since 2016, ranging from click-to-message formats to sponsored direct messages, with brands paying application programming interface utility fees to push promotions directly into chats. Unlike WhatsApp, Messenger does not have end-to-end encryption, which reduces regulatory friction and allows Meta to experiment more freely with direct promotional engagement. This flexibility has made Messenger tightly integrated into Meta’s broader ad ecosystem, even if it plays a smaller role in India compared to WhatsApp.

Furthermore, Facebook, while no long­er the fastest growing app, still serves as an important part of Meta’s India business. Its groups, pages and marketplace functions continue to draw communities and small businesses, especially in Tier II and Tier III cities. The platform remains a major driver of digital advertising revenue and a funnel that directs users into Instagram and WhatsApp for deeper engagement. Further, Threads has also found early adoption in India, particularly among younger urban users seeking alternatives to X (formerly Twitter). Though not yet a major revenue engine, it reflects Meta’s strategy of building complementary platforms to capture shifting user habits. Finally, Meta AI has quickly emerged as a new layer of monetisation and engagement.

Partnership landscape

In August 2025, Reliance Industries announced a joint venture with Meta, valued at around Rs 8.55 billion ($100 million). The venture, which has now received approval from the European Union, gives Reliance a 70 per cent stake, and Meta the remaining 30 per cent. Its focus is on developing enterprise-grade AI solutions by combining Meta’s open-source Llama models with Reliance’s extensive enterprise reach.

Alongside, Meta also worked with the government-backed IndiaAI initiative in October 2024, supporting academic partnerships such as the Shrijan AI Centre at IIT Jodhpur. Furthermore, Meta continued its engagement with the Open Network for Digital Commerce in December 2023, building tools that help small businesses plug into India’s open e-commerce framework.

Beyond enterprise and academia, Meta is also embedding itself in public services through WhatsApp. One of the most prominent examples is Mana Mitra, launched with the Andhra Pradesh government, which gives citizens access to more than 700 services via a WhatsApp chatbot. Already, 4 million people have used it. Even education has found a place on the platform. Before the 12th standard board exams in 2024, 91 per cent of hall tickets were distributed over WhatsApp.

Internationally, the company has recently collaborated with image generators like Midjourney and Black Forest Labs in the early phase of its new product, Vibes. In September 2025, Meta rolled out an updated version of its Meta AI app, offering users an early preview of Vibes, a feed for creating and sharing short-form, AI-generated videos.

Moreover, at its Meta Connect 2025 developer conference, Meta unveiled new hardware in partnership with Ray-Ban and Oakley, including the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses paired with a neural wristband that allows users to send messages and perform actions through subtle hand gestures. While this advanced version has so far been rolled out only in select global markets, Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are already available in India. For now, the more experimental devices like the display glasses and neural wristband remain aspir­ational in India.

Outlook

Meta’s next chapter in India is likely to be shaped by three intertwined forces: AI, conversational commerce, and immersive technologies. In the near term, AI is emerging as the backbone of Meta’s India strategy. Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta, has reportedly said he believes every business will one day have an AI agent, much like a website or social media profile today. To prepare for that future, Meta has begun hiring region- and language-specific staff in India to make its AI assistants feel natural and culturally authentic. The idea is straightforward: if small businesses and consumers can talk to an AI assistant that understands their language and context, adoption will accelerate.

In the medium term, business messaging and conversational commerce will remain Meta’s primary revenue focus. WhatsApp, already central to India’s digital economy, is being positioned as the hub where discovery, interaction and transactions converge. With features like AI chatbots, catalogues and click-to-message ads, Meta is betting that commerce in India will increasingly start and end inside a chat window.

Looking further ahead, immersive technologies form the most ambitious part of Meta’s road map. While affordability and infrastructure remain hurdles, Meta’s bet is that as 5G and edge computing expand, India will eventually emerge as a critical market for metaverse experiences.

In sum

With these opportunities come deep challenges. India is both Meta’s greatest opportunity and its most complex test. The country delivers unmatched user scale but relatively low monetisation. It offers vast potential for conversational commerce but faces entrenched competition in payments and digital services. While India serves as a proving ground for AI-driven customer engagement, it also demands localisation, compliance and trust-building at a scale unmatched anywhere else. That explains why critics now warn that Meta’s next frontier, integrating conversational data from AI chatbots, could intensify concerns around data misuse. Every interaction with AI generates another layer of insight that can sharpen ad targeting. Going forward, the key question for Meta is whether it can balance innovation with privacy, or whether the company risks repeating past clashes with regulators.

Harshita Kalra