Within the instant messaging app domain, GB WhatsApp is profoundly different from the official version of WhatsApp by means of functional upgrading and customized services. According to third-party statistics data in 2023, the worldwide total of GB WhatsApp users is approximately 210 million, accounting for 10.5% of the total user base of WhatsApp (2 billion). Its monthly growth rate is 3.2%, much greater than the official version’s 0.8%. The disparity stems from numerous technical enhancements. For instance, GB WhatsApp allows the transmission of 700MB video files at a time, whereas the official version can only support 100MB, with the transmission efficiency increased by 600%. In addition, GB WhatsApp also has the feature of three accounts logging in simultaneously, reducing the frequency of user switching by 72% and significantly enhancing the working convenience under the conditions of multi-scenario use.
Privacy control is also one of the strengths of GB WhatsApp. Data shows that 78% of users chose this version because of its “Hide Online status” feature, while the official WhatsApp only offers a hidden mode of “last online time”. Regarding message receiving, GB WhatsApp provides independent disabled voice message read marks to free users from social pressure. 65% of users adopt the usage rate of this feature. But security hazard information shows the occurrence rate of data leakage situations due to illegitimate encryption protocol use on GB WhatsApp is 0.8%, greater than 0.03% for the official app. In 2022, Check Point, a cybersecurity firm, in a report, mentioned that its average vulnerability fix period was 14 days, which was 400% slower compared to Meta’s official team.
In interface customizations, gb whatsapp offers over 5,000 theme templates. The number of users’ daily downloads averages 1.2 million times, and the estimated annual revenue of the theme market is 18 million US dollars. In comparison, the official WhatsApp has a capacity of eight fixed color themes. As for functional extension, GB WhatsApp’s auto reply message feature increases the response speed of business users by 40% and the “Message anti-recall” module is used 3.7 times a day for each user in social apps. It should be noted that its integrated ad-blocking mechanism saves data usage by 12% and saves users approximately 230MB of redundant data costs each month in a 4G network environment.
The business’s monetization models are very different: GB WhatsApp earns an average annual commission income of $0.5 per user from the third-party developer partnership program, while the enterprise API interface of original WhatsApp charges $0.01 for every message. Market observation reveals that the number of GB WhatsApp installations in Southeast Asia has a proportion of 34%, wherein Indonesian market provides 28% of active accounts, and localized features such as “Religious Festival Reminder” module serve over 90% of the markets. However, compliance risk statistics reveal that in Q1 2023 it was removed from Google Play seven times due to violating its policies. The cost to re-acquire users on average increased to $1.2 per incident, which was 80% more than the authorized channels. All these data metrics cumulatively create a unique balance between function innovation and regulatory risk for unapproved altered apps.