WhatsApp May Retain Only 18 Percent Users Amid Privacy Row: Survey

A recent survey has revealed that only 18 per cent of users may continue using WhatsApp in India while 36 per cent will reduce their usage drastically. Also, 15 per cent of users are likely to stop using the app completely, amid the ongoing privacy row.

WhatsApp has been receiving a lot of flak lately over its new privacy policy and users have been flocking from WhatsApp to other alternative apps like Signal and Telegram.

According to Mashable, the survey received over 24,000 responses from WhatsApp users based in 244 districts of India. 24 percent of users said they (along with their groups) are considering a switch to other instant messaging platforms, while 91 percent of WhatsApp users said that they will not use its payment features.

This action is over the concerns that WhatsApp will share payment and transaction-related data with its parent company Facebook and other third parties.

However, WhatsApp has now extended the deadline of its updated privacy policy to May 15 from its original date which was in February. In the new terms of services, WhatsApp had asked users to agree to allow Facebook and its subsidiaries to collect user data such as including phone numbers, location, etc.

As per Mashable, Signal and Telegram had 24,000 and 1.3 million downloads respectively between January 1 and January 5, leading to growth by 9,483 per cent in the case of Signal and growth by 15 per cent in the case of Telegram. WhatsApp, on the other hand, has witnessed a massive drop in its downloads by 35 per cent over January 6 to January 10.

Does WhatsApp's new privacy policy spell the end for your privacy? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.