In a world that’s over-app'd and underwhelmed, conversation isn't just king: it’s conversion

EVERY year, over 250 000 new mobile apps are launched across Apple and Google's app stores. Yet research by Data. ai reveals that the average smartphone user interacts with only nine apps a day, with the majority of their time concentrated in just two or three apps - and almost always, WhatsApp is one of them.

- Jonathan Elcock, Co-founder and CEO at Rather.chat. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.

In fact, WhatsApp now boasts over 2.8 billion global users, and in South Africa, it holds near-total dominance in the messaging space, with penetration rates exceeding 93%, and the average user spending over 38 minutes a day on the app, according to SimilarWeb’s State of Mobile Usage Report 2024.

In light of this, businesses need to confront a glaring contradiction: while consumers are actively consolidating their digital behaviour into a handful of core apps, companies continue to invest heavily in the development of standalone mobile apps that most users simply won't adopt - or worse, delete immediately after a single use.

This phenomenon, often referred to as “app fatigue," is the result of saturation, complexity, and an overestimation of consumer patience.

In a mobile-first country like South Africa, where data costs remain among the highest in the world relative to income, and where many users rely on mid-tier smartphones with limited storage, forcing users to download yet another app just to perform a onetime action (like checking in for a flight, applying for a loan, or ordering food) is no longer just ineffective. It’s tone-deaf.

The truth is, the app boom of the early 2010s has given way to a new behavioural economy - one where convenience, conversation, and contextual relevance rule. And this is exactly where WhatsApp smartbots come into play.

Smartbots built into WhatsApp offer a fundamentally different value proposition. They eliminate the friction of downloads, logins, forgotten passwords, and clunky interfaces.

Instead, they offer seamless, Al-powered user journeys inside a platform where consumers are already spending their time, communicating daily with friends, family, service providers, and increasingly, with businesses.