WhatsApp for Business to start rolling out in India this week

NEW DELHI: The world's most-widely used instant-messaging app WhatsApp rolled out its WhatsApp for Business app in select countries late last week. Though the company did say that the app will soon roll out in India and Brazil, two of its biggest market, it didn't reveal a specific timeframe for the same. The company said that the app will be coming to these countries in the next few weeks, the company said in its blog post.

Now the Facebook-owned company has officially confirmed to Gadgets Now that the new app will be rolling out to businesses in India starting this week. The company has been running a pilot for the app with select Indian businesses like Make my Trip and Book My Show since last year. Now it appears that the company is gradually increasing the ambit and getting new companies in the fold.

In addition to this, Gadgets Now saw a message where a customer has received an order confirmation message from Flipkart-owned fashion website Myntra on her WhatsApp account. The message came from Myntra's WhatsApp Business account.

At the beginning of the chat, one can see the text message, "This chat is with averified business account for 'Myntra'. Tap for more info. " Like seen in other regular chats, this too mentions that this chat is end-to-end encrypted. When ordered a product from Myntra, the company sent a confirmation text on WhatsApp about the order and the cost.

WhatsApp for Business, which was made official few days ago, is built on the same platform as the WhatsApp Messenger. However, it boasts of some additional features. These include verified profiles along with features like Quick Replies, Greeting Messages and Away Messages. They can also access messaging statistics for a given period of time. The app is only available on Android and is currently available for US, UK, Italy, Indonesia and Mexico.