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Google is running out of time to fix this one glaring problem by Andrew Meola on May 2, 2016, 10:20 AM 
This story was delivered to BI Intelligence Mobile Industry Insider subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here. Google is without question a massively successful tech juggernaut, but the company is still missing one increasingly important feature. It doesn't have a popular messaging app. But that almost changed, according to a new report from Russian media company RBC. The report states that Google CEO Sundar Pichai met with Pavel Durov, the creator of the popular messaging app Telegram, in May 2015 to discuss an acquisition. Google allegedly valued the app at $1 billion. Durov has adamantly denied ever meeting with Pichai. Regardless, Google does need to do something about its lack of a popular chat app. The company has offered Hangouts for quite some time, but it has struggled to attract users to the platform, especially on mobile. To remedy this, Google has been developing a smart mobile messaging client for more than a year with the hopes that the AI and chatbot technology can either lure users to hangouts or outright replace the service altogether, according to the Wall Street Journal. But time is not on Google's side here, as most of the most popular messaging apps in the world already belong to other companies, at least partially. Facebook purchased WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, the same year in which Japanese electronics company Rakuten acquired Viber. And Tencent backed Kik in 2015 with $50 million. Telegram has approximately 100 million monthly active users, which pales in comparison to WhatsApp's $1 billion, but it is growing quickly. If Google were to acquire it, then the tech giant would have a true foothold in the surging messaging app market. Part of that market's growth stems from the evolution of messaging apps, which have grown from simple text-based services to platforms that allow for video sharing and even commerce. Will McKitterick, senior research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on messaging apps that takes a close look at the size of the messaging app market, how these apps are changing, and the types of opportunities for monetization that have emerged from the growing audience that uses messaging services daily. 
Here are some of the key takeaways from the report: - Mobile messaging apps are massive. The largest services have hundreds of millions of monthly active users (MAU). Falling data prices, cheaper devices, and improved features are helping propel their growth.
- Messaging apps are about more than messaging. The first stage of the chat app revolution was focused on growth. In the next phase, companies will focus on building out services and monetizing chat apps’ massive user base.
- Popular Asian messaging apps like WeChat, KakaoTalk, and LINE have taken the lead in finding innovative ways to keep users engaged. They’ve also built successful strategies for monetizing their services.
- Media companies, and marketers are still investing more time and resources into social networks like Facebook and Twitter than they are into messaging services. That will change as messaging companies build out their services and provide more avenues for connecting brands, publishers, and advertisers with users.
In full, this report: - Gives a high-level overview of the messaging market in the US by comparing total monthly active users for the top chat apps.
- Examines the user behavior of chat app users, specifically what makes them so attractive to brands, publishers, and advertisers.
- Identifies what distinguishes chat apps in the West from their counterparts in the East.
- Discusses the potentially lucrative avenues companies are pursuing to monetize their services.
- Offers key insights and implications for marketers as they consider interacting with users through these new platforms.
To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options: - Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
- Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT
The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the future of messaging apps.
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