WhatsApp-obsessed Indonesia and India struggle to forsake app amid privacy policy confusion

The combined 590 million users in the two countries have become reliant on the messaging app, but are learning to adapt to rivals like Signal and Telegram

Analysts said the Facebook-owned app’s new privacy policy would spur greater awareness in India and Indonesia about the importance of data protection

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A user in Mumbai updates Facebook's WhatsApp application on his mobile phone. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:39pm, 21 Jan 2021Updated: 9:53pm, 21 Jan 2021

When WhatsApp announced an update to its privacy terms earlier this month, many among its 2 billion users worldwide raced to download rival apps Signal and Telegram, including those in Asia’s second- and third-largest countries, India and Indonesia.

But analysts say abandoning the messaging app will be harder for the 450 million users in India, who form WhatsApp’s largest base worldwide, and the 140 million in Indonesia, where the app has surged in popularity in recent years.

Increased internet penetration and cheap mobile devices and data packages have brought millions more people online in recent years in developing nations such as India and Indonesia, and, as a result, users have abandoned conventional short-messaging services and flocked to social media and messaging platforms to connect with loved ones and businesses.

Indeed, Shankaran Krishnan, a retired teacher in Bangalore who uses WhatsApp daily to chat with his son and grandchildren in the US, said he was hesitant to follow his son’s advice to uninstall the app.

“I’m not sure whether other apps will be user-friendly like this one. It already took me a lot of effort in my age to migrate from Skype to WhatsApp years ago,” said the 63-year-old.