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Meta’s WhatsApp Shakeup Could Put India at the Center of Its Next Growth PushWritten by Leo Miller on July 1, 2026 
Key Points
- Meta Platforms is reportedly investing $900 million in CRED while bringing founder Kunal Shah in to lead WhatsApp.
- WhatsApp has more than 3 billion users globally, but it still contributes only a small share of Meta Platforms’ total revenue.
- Kunal Shah’s India fintech experience could help Meta Platforms improve WhatsApp payments and commerce monetization.
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As Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) looks for new ways to drive growth and justify its artificial intelligence spending, the company is making a seemingly unlikely move. The social media giant is investing $900 million in the Indian financial technology startup Cred. However, generating a strong return on this investment is far from Meta’s primary motivation for the decision. Rather, Meta is repeating its “acquihire” strategy as it looks to increase monetization of its massive but relatively low-revenue platform: WhatsApp.
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Kunal Shah: Meta’s Latest “Acquihire” Foray“Acquihire” describes a strategic move in which a firm invests heavily in another company with the ultimate goal of hiring its founder. Meta last did this by investing over $14 billion in Scale AI in 2025. As a result, the company hired Scale’s founder, Alexandr Wang, who would become the firm’s Chief AI Officer. Wang was instrumental in helping the company develop its best AI model to date: Muse Spark. Similarly, after Meta’s large investment, Cred’s founder, Kunal Shah, will lead WhatsApp. Understanding several key metrics around WhatsApp helps show why Meta made this decision. WhatsApp has over 3 billion monthly active users worldwide. But, despite this massive user base, WhatsApp contributes a very small percentage of Meta’s total revenue. Meta accounts for WhatsApp sales in its Family of Apps (FOA) “Other Revenue” line item. Last quarter, the company’s FOA Other Revenue was $885 million. This compares to the firm’s total revenue last quarter of $56.3 billion. In turn, WhatsApp contributed a maximum of only around 1.6% of Meta’s total revenue, as the FOA Other Revenue line item includes non-WhatsApp sales. For a platform that has more than one-third of the world’s 8.3 billion population as users, that revenue contribution is not overly impressive. At the same time, this means that Meta should conceivably have a lot of room to grow WhatsApp revenue. Notably, growth is taking shape, with FOA Other Revenue rising by 74% year over year (YOY) in Q1 2026. This compares to growth of 34% YOY in Q1 2025, showing that Meta has managed to significantly accelerate this part of its business. However, this still comes off a relatively small base. Overall, if WhatsApp had 3 billion users, the company generated a maximum of just 30 cents per user last quarter. Due to WhatsApp’s largely international user base, bringing in Shah could be the right move to boost monetization. Indian Expertise: Converting WhatsApp International Users to RevenueNotably, a very small percentage of WhatsApp users are in the United States. Meta last provided an update on U.S.-based WhatsApp users in Q1 2025, placing the figure at “over 100 million." This is equal to less than 4% of the total user base. On the other hand, Meta reportedly has over 500 million WhatsApp users in India, equal to more than 16% of the total. Given this, it makes sense that Meta would bring in Shah to run the platform, given his success in growing Cred in India. Overall, Shah grew Cred’s users to more than 170 million. Additionally, Cred processes more than 40% of India’s credit card bill payments and grew revenue to around $325 million annually. Bringing in an experienced Indian founder makes even more sense, considering India has a notoriously difficult market for foreign companies to succeed in. Tying into Shah’s experience at Cred, he will look to help Meta scale WhatsApp’s payment features. Saying that WhatsApp has gained limited traction thus far as a payment platform in India may be an understatement. Within India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI), WhatsApp Pay's market share was just 0.65% as of May 2026. Meanwhile, Alphabet’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Pay held a 32.7% share. Still, the good news for Meta is that it has a massive base of users who communicate through WhatsApp. With this significant exposure, the focus will be on changing the narrative around WhatsApp’s communication-only perception. Looking beyond India, appointing Shah to lead WhatsApp signals that Meta is working to capitalize on the platform’s primarily international user base. Should Shah succeed in India, this success could extend to other non-U.S. geographies, which account for more than 95% of total users.
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WhatsApp Enters New Era in Pursuit of Over $30 Billion PotentialOverall, time will tell whether Shah can shift WhatsApp from a platform with a massive user base to one that generates needle-moving revenue for Meta. Notably, analysts like Wolfe Research have previously expressed a lot of optimism about WhatsApp’s potential, projecting it could generate more than $30 billion in revenue. Looking ahead, investors should monitor the growth rates in Meta’s FOA revenue segment to assess whether Shah’s appointment is shifting WhatsApp’s trajectory. Furthermore, earnings call commentary or WhatsApp press releases could help indicate the specific strategies Meta is taking to improve WhatsApp monetization. Read this article online › Featured Stories
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