WhatsApp is by far and by a long margin, the most popular messaging app in the market. And that includes in countries in Africa.
Its ease of use, straightforward interface and the relatively small size, makes it a major hit in the continent. In Zimbabwe for example, the app accounted to about half of all internet data in the southern African country in 2017.
But that report was somehow below of what really happened in the continent.
In Africa, modified versions of WhatsApp are gaining much traction.
GB WhatsApp which is one of the many modified version of WhatsApp, is the second most used social messaging app only behind WhatsApp’s official version, that according to Caribou Data, an analytics and insights firm focused on emerging markets.
The reason for this popularity, is because modified versions of WhatsApp which are created by third-party developers, offer a lot more features than the original WhatsApp.
For example, users can hide their online status, turn off the blue tick only for themselves, record a voice-note, restore deleted files, hide chats, customize chat windows, private mode, view Status anonymously, schedule messages, send and receive files larger than 50MB (compared to 15MB on the original WhatsApp), use multiple accounts, and others.
"They’re obviously a big draw for a lot of people because you can do a lot of things with them that you can’t do with WhatsApp," explained Bryan Pon, co-founder of Caribou Data.
Most importantly, users of the modified WhatsApp versions can communicate with users using the original WhatsApp, meaning that they can all connect regardless of the versions.
Among African mobile internet users. these modified WhatsApp are called “WhatsApp Mods”.
And because they're not the real WhatsApp app, they don't show up on Google Play Store. To download the app, users need to download them elsewhere outside official app stores.
According to Caribou Data’s analysis of 230 million distinct app sessions across Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, which are of Africa’s largest mobile internet markets, GB WhatsApp surpassed even Facebook.
The analysis was based on anonymously logged smartphone activities tracked by Caribou Data’s research app on users’ phone.
In total, social media messaging accounted for around 40% of use activity among a sample base of 15,000 tracked apps. And three different WhatsApp Mod versions were among the ten most used messaging apps in the continent.
While WhatsApp Mods offer a lot of extra features not found on the original WhatsApp, they don't benefit WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption.
GB WhatsApp also noted that its app "is not safe for fair usage", as it leaves users vulnerable to malware infections due to the fact that its app cannot be marketed in official app stores.
According to DigitBin, WhatsApp Mods are also more prone due to them using less secure servers, posing more risk to user data. They can also ask permissions more than what is really needed, and others that can be security and privacy risks to users.
WhatsApp said that these kind of modifications are "unofficial" and violate its Terms of Service.
They are not supported because their security practices cannot be validated. What's more, WhatsApp Mod users can also be banned from using the official app, the company said.
This is why WhatsApp Mod developers advise their users to not register their primary numbers, if ever they get banned.