Rakuten Viber for Business recap: How brands and users communicated in 2021

The number of Rakuten Viber business accounts increased by 55%, Rakuten Viber Сhatbots gained momentum in user engagement with 20% growth, and Rakuten Viber Ads impressions rose by 70% — a year in re-cap for Rakuten Viber.

As one of the world's leaders in voice-based communication and instant messaging services, Rakuten Viber is keen to share key insights about how users and brands worldwide have been communicating in the app in 2021.

Today, more than 8,500 brands across the world rely on Rakuten Viber Business Messaging Solutions for communicating with their clients. Thanks to our expertise in the current trend toward direct dialogue between brands and users, Rakuten Viber for Business successfully helped companies strengthen relationships with their customers, as well as make the most of conversational business messages. In response to the brands’ growing demand for new means of engaging with customers through chats, Viber has rolled out many new features and is constantly working on more updates. By focusing on both user expectations and brands’ business needs, we achieved some great results in 2021:

• A 55% surge in the number of new Rakuten Viber business message accounts opened to establish 1-to-1 connection with customers and an overall 20% increase of Rakuten Viber Business Messages delivered globally; notably, immense growth occurred in the following regions: 112% in the Philippines, 104% in Iraq, and 91% in Vietnam.
• A significant growth in Rakuten Viber Conversational Business Messages: in the Philippines numbers increased by 291%, in Bulgaria— by 237%, and in Serbia—by 104%. This confirms the trend that users are more inclined to have two-way communication with brands via the messaging app.
• A substantial growth in transactional messages (such as order confirmations, shipping updates, transaction notifications, etc.), particularly, in Greece (by 193%), in Bulgaria (by 52%), and in the Philippines (by 372%).
• A global 29% rise in promotional messages. By connecting CRM or CDP to Rakuten Viber Business Messages, brands can personalize communication with their customers to achieve greater engagement and business results.
• A 20% growth in the number of Rakuten Viber Chatbots, where customers get automated replies to requests in real-time 24/7. Chatbots let businesses offer around-the-clock support without the additional costs that come with human agents—and free up the human service agents to deal with more complex customer care needs.

Brands have also leveraged Rakuten Viber advertising solutions to increase their visibility and attract new users. Last year, the volume of ads impressions on Rakuten Viber grew by 70%, showcasing the significant interest from advertisers across the world. Among the top-performing verticals worldwide: health and fitness, which grew by 90%, energy by 56%, and transportation by 51%. The app has also seen a spike in new advertising categories such as recruitment and local businesses, reflecting the pandemic’s influence on business and the job market.

Since launching in autumn of 2021, Rakuten Viber Lenses feature has also become another milestone for the company: more than 8.3 million users around the globe have put the Lenses to use for media such as pictures, videos, or GIFs; over 5.2 million users generated more than 51.8 million captures in the app. The customizable and creative lenses have given brands a native and non-intrusive way to increase brand awareness and drive customers along the users’ funnel.

“For a long time now, it has been a part of Rakuten Viber’s strategy to become a super-app – giving as many services with added value as possible throughout our users’ day and providing brands with more opportunities to interact with their customers in the native environment. For this, we are constantly working on improving our suite of business solutions to let brands and users seamlessly interact with each other at each step of the customer journey,” says Cristina Constandache, Chief Revenue Officer at Rakuten Viber. “The numbers mentioned above once again prove that we are developing our app in the right direction, as both users and brands increasingly use Rakuten Viber in their day-to-day communication and routines.”

Do not hesitate to contact us if you want to learn how to use Rakuten Viber for Business in 2022.