WhatsApp

WhatsApp is the most-used messaging app in the world and, in much of Latin America, Europe, Africa, South Asia and the Middle East, the default way to reach anyone — often more so than a phone call or email.

All messages are end-to-end encrypted by default, which is unusual at this scale and is the main reason it is trusted for personal and business conversation alike.

For commerce it matters that customers already have it installed: in many markets a WhatsApp number gets answered when an email would not, which is why order confirmations and support increasingly run through it rather than through a web form.