WhatsApp, Meta’s messaging app that millions of Indians rely on every day, is facing a critical moment in India as recent government guidelines threaten to disrupt how the platform works for everyday users and businesses.
It was issued at the end of last month and was made public earlier this month, the guidelines required some app-based communications services to keep accounts permanently linked to an active SIM card and impose tighter controls on how apps work on all devices.
New Delhi says the measures are aimed at curbing growing cyber fraud in India, the world’s most populous nation. Digital advocacy groups, policy experts and industry groups representing major digital platforms – including Meta – have warned, however, that the approach risks regulatory overreach and could disrupt legitimate use, especially in a country where WhatsApp has become an everyday infrastructure for personal communication and small business commerce.
The guidelines, which app providers including Meta, Telegram and Signal must comply with within 90 days of being issued on November 28, require messaging apps to remain linked to the SIM card used during registration. The web and desktop versions of these apps also require users to log out every six hours and reconnect their devices via a QR code to regain access.
“Mandatory continuous SIM connection and periodic disconnection ensures that every active account and web session is linked to a live, KYC-verified SIM, restoring the traceability of numbers used in phishing, investment, digital capture and loan fraud,” the telecom ministry said in a press release earlier this month, adding that India suffered losses of ₹28 billion (US$2.5 billion) only in 2024.
The Indian government has clarified that the rules do not apply when the SIM remains in the device and the user is roaming.
While the guidelines apply broadly to major instant messaging apps, their impact is likely to be felt more strongly than WhatsApp, which is used by more than 500 million people in India. App adoption in India is also unusually deep. 94% of WhatsApp’s monthly user base in India opened the app daily in November, while 67% of WhatsApp Business users in the country did the same, according to Sensor Tower data shared with TechCrunch. In comparison, 59% of US monthly WhatsApp users opened the app daily, compared to 57% for WhatsApp Business.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
13-15 October 2026
Many merchants in India rely on the WhatsApp Business app — a smartphone-based version of the service tailored for small businesses — typically registering the account on a SIM-connected phone while handling customer conversations through the WhatsApp web or desktop client on another device. Unlike the larger companies that use WhatsApp Business API for automated CRM-linked communication, these small businesses access their customers through WhatsApp Business and its accompanying web interface, meaning mandatory SIM logins and frequent forced disconnections could disrupt workflows for order-taking, customer support and engagement.
The potential upheaval in India comes as WhatsApp steadily expands its multi-device and companion capabilities, allowing users and businesses to stay connected across phones, browsers and devices without relying on an active smartphone.
Rapid expansion in deep entrenchment
The directions come as WhatsApp undergoes a major shift in India, its biggest market, with growth driven increasingly by retaining existing users rather than rapidly expanding its new user base.
WhatsApp’s mobile monthly active users in India grew 6% year-over-year in the fourth quarter year-to-date, even as downloads are down nearly 49%, according to Sensor Tower data shared with TechCrunch. Compared to the end of 2022, WhatsApp’s monthly active users in India grew by 24%, while downloads fell by 14% in the same period, the market intelligence firm said.
“It would be fair to say that the user growth (MAU) for WhatsApp in India in recent years has been driven more by retention (successful re-engagement of existing or previous users) than new user acquisition,” said Abraham Yousef, senior intelligence analyst at Sensor Tower.
Data from Appfigures shows that WhatsApp Business has consistently recorded more estimated first-time installs than WhatsApp Messenger in India since early 2024, reflecting how growth is increasingly being driven by merchant adoption rather than widespread consumer expansion.
Part of that pattern reflects how WhatsApp is used in India, said Randy Nelson, chief information officer at Appfigures. It’s common for merchants to maintain separate WhatsApp identities for personal and customer communication, often enabled by dual-SIM phones, while a single business can set up multiple installations on staff and store devices.
Sensor Tower data points in the same direction. WhatsApp Business monthly active users in India continued to grow year-over-year at the end of 2025 and are up more than 130% compared to 2021, far outpacing WhatsApp Messenger’s growth of around 34% over the same period, according to estimates by the market intelligence firm.
While overall engagement remains higher on WhatsApp — with Indian users opening the app daily and spending an average of 38 minutes a day in November, compared to 27 minutes on WhatsApp Business — the gap looks different in the US, where users spend about 23 minutes a day on WhatsApp and 27 minutes on WhatsApp Business, according to Sensor Tower estimates.
India’s guidelines raise ‘serious questions of technical feasibility’
In a statement last week, industry body Broadband India Forum (BIF), of which Meta is a member, said the measures could lead to “material inconvenience and disruption of service to ordinary users”, adding that they raised “serious questions of technical feasibility”.
The guidelines hinge on a new and still-disputed classification of telecommunications user-identified entities (TIUEs) under India’s telecom cybersecurity rules, said Kazim Rizvi, founding director of New Delhi-based public policy think tank The Dialogue, effectively placing messaging apps in a framework of telecom law instead of the country’s traditional guidelines. legislation.
“The directives derive their force not from statute but from delegated legislation,” Rizvi told TechCrunch. “Furthermore, the lack of public consultation or technical working groups risks creating compliance frictions without addressing the underlying fraud actors.”
India’s telecom ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
For now, companies including Meta have limited leeway to challenge the guidelines in court, according to tech policy experts.
Challenging the directives would typically require showing that they either exceed the scope of the underlying law or violate constitutional protections, said Dhruv Garg, a technology policy consultant and fellow at the Indian Governance and Policy Project — a high bar that may be difficult to meet in this case.
Meta declined to comment for this article.
