Shares of Meta Platforms (META) are down in today’s trading despite news that India has lifted restrictions on WhatsApp Pay, which will allow the social media giant to expand its payment service to all 500 million WhatsApp users in its largest market. This marks a major win for Meta as it looks to challenge dominant fintech players like Google Pay (GOOGL) and Walmart-backed PhonePe (WMT) in India’s booming digital payments space.
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The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which oversees the UPI payments network, had previously capped WhatsApp Pay at 100 million users to ensure a gradual rollout. The cap’s removal points to a shift in the country’s regulatory stance and opens up opportunities for WhatsApp in a market that processes over 13 billion UPI transactions monthly.
Meanwhile, the NPCI has delayed a proposed 30% market share cap for UPI apps until 2026, which eases the pressure on dominant players. WhatsApp says it is focused on making payments seamless and secure in order to boost UPI adoption in the country and support India’s digital and financial inclusion goals with features like bill payments and shopping.
WhatsApp Can Be a Major Growth Catalyst for Meta
There is no doubt that WhatsApp can be a major growth catalyst for Meta. It already has a large user base and interest in its services appear to be growing. As the image below shows, the number of visitors to WhatsApp’s website rose significantly during the most recent quarter. In fact, total estimated visits jumped 29.8% when compared to the same quarter of last year.
Is META Stock a Good Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on META stock based on 38 Buys, three Holds, and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After an 68% rally in its share price in 2024, the average META price target of $675.92 per share implies 14.9% upside potential.
