WhatsApp Business begins worldwide roll out on Android

Though WhatsApp was first envisioned as a communication app for regular people, its impressive growth over the years has driven businesses to sign up for it too. Having a social media presence is important for a lot of businesses these days, so WhatsApp has decided to facilitate them better by launching an app made specifically for them. Today a new app called WhatsApp Business has launched on Android, and while it's mostly the same WhatsApp we're already familiar with, it comes with a handful of enhancements for business users.

WhatsApp details those enhancements in a new post to the WhatsApp blog today. The first big difference is the addition of business profiles. These seem to be similar to regular WhatsApp profiles, only with additional fields that allow businesses to enter their addresses, website URLs, and descriptions.

Business users will also have a new set of messaging tools at their disposal. These include quick replies, which allow you to craft pre-made replies to frequently asked questions. We'll also see greeting messages and even away messages launch, so if you're busy and can't get to your WhatsApp messages right away, customers will know that they aren't being ignored. Along with these messaging enhancements comes a collection of simple metrics, which will allow you to track stats like how many of your messages have been read.

Regular WhatsApp users will be able to tells business users apart from everyone else, as WhatsApp will identify business accounts with specific branding. Once WhatsApp has confirmed that the phone number listed on a business account matches the phone number of the actual business, that account will get a "Confirmed" badge, helping users avoid getting swindled by those who would use this new app as a way to trick other WhatsApp users.

WhatsApp Business is going live today on the Google Play Store [download] in the US, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, and the UK. WhatsApp promises that more regions around the world will come online in the coming weeks. It didn't say when we'll see an iOS version launch, but it seems safe to assume that we'll see it roll out shortly. Stay tuned.