5% of Whatsapp users in India logged out over policy: Survey

Five per cent of Whatsapp users in India have deleted the messaging app while another 22 per cent have reduced usage drastically after the Facebook-owned major revealed plans to update its privacy policy, according to the community platform Localcircles.

Three weeks since Whatsapp came out with the new privacy policy, Localcircles has conducted another survey to understand if users are actually leaving the platform and migrating to some other messaging apps.

Leaving a social network is not easy because the whole network or at least 75 per cent of members of a group or 75 per cent of an individual’s contacts must move to an alternative platform before they fully switch.

Whatsapp’s policy seems to have led a section of users shifting to alternative instant messaging platforms such as Signal and Telegram. Signal is highly focused on users’ privacy, while Telegram is a mix of features and has a private chat option as well.

In the survey, 5 per cent of Indians said they had downloaded alternative apps and started using them actively and also deleted Whatsapp. Around 16 per cent said they had downloaded alternative apps and started using them actively while reducing Whatsapp usage. Another 34 per cent of users said they had downloaded alternative apps though they are not using them actively.

On the other hand, 15 per cent users said they were still using Whatsapp and according to 6 per cent, they have reduced Whatsapp usage but have not downloaded alternative messaging apps. Around 18 per cent of users said they would continue using Whatsapp same as before.

The survey result indicated that 67 per cent of Indians are still actively using Whatsapp. There were also 22 per cent of citizens who said that they had reduced usage of the platform. Only 5 per cent said they have deleted it.

Over 17,000 responses were received from citizens across 232 districts for the survey. About 64 per cent respondents were men while 36 per cent were women. India is the biggest user base for Facebook, with around 328 million users, and Whatsapp has 400 million users here, also the highest.