Apple 🍎 to take on messaging ✉ rivals with launch of Business Chat
The feature, called Business Chat, was announced last year at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, and will debut this spring with launch partners including Discover, Hilton, Lowe's and Wells Fargo.
The move represents a major push by Apple to shift B2C communications, payments, and customer service to its own messaging platform, and away from tech companies that today dominate business messaging, like Facebook Messenger, Google, Twitter, and, as of this month, WhatsApp, which has just launched its own WhatsApp Business app.
While it may seem like an odd fit to chat with businesses in iMessage where people today keep up with friends and family via personal conversations, it's not surprising to see that Apple is entering this space.
Plus, a majority of consumers said they would rather message a business than call customer service, according to a Facebook-commissioned study by Nielsen released last fall, which found that 56 percent want to text, not phone.
Facebook Messenger, for example, already has some 1.3 billion users on its app, which is connected with Facebook's wider social network where businesses can manage their own presence, through branded Pages, posts, media, promotions and advertising.
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