New Viber CEO Has Plan to Beat WhatsApp

The newly named chief of Japanese retailer Rakuten’s messaging app Viber plans to quickly introduce new products to better compete with Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger as the market faces increasing regulation in the European Union, according to Bloomberg.

CEO Djamel Agaoua plans to roll out in March a new version of the app, which will function more like a platform than a single-purpose app with features that will eventually include e-commerce and banking. Users will be able to open a chat window with friends, look at restaurants, decide where to go, and make a reservation, all without exiting Viber. Payment through the app is planned, but won’t be part of the initial rollout, he added.

“My first priority is to expand the user base and make Viber available for every user to connect and communicate freely," said Agaoua. “Second is security and privacy, and third is transforming Viber into a platform so services like those Rakuten provides can be provided to our users.“

Viber began encrypting messages in April, said Agaoua, who will be based in Israel where most of the company’s 350 employees work, primarily in research and development. While the company will be able to say which users spoke to one another, it won’t be able to provide the content of messages, he added. “Even if we had a judge’s warrant, we wouldn’t be able to say what you said, because we don’t have it.“

Viber has also said it will offer free calls to those people affected by President Donald Trump’s travel ban. “We saw this incredible situation where people were stuck in airports and couldn’t communicate with families and couldn’t go back to their resident country," Agaoua said. “It was strange to us and we decided to do something.“

The global messaging market is growing. Online research portal Statista forecasts the number of users communicating via dedicated apps will reach 2 billion in 2018, up from 1 billion in 2014. According to digital intelligence company SimilarWeb, Viber is the most popular messaging service in eight countries surveyed, while Facebook Messenger was the favorite in 53 and WhatsApp in 96.