NEW DELHI, April 12: WhatsApp, the Meta-owned popular messaging app, faced an outage on Saturday in India, leaving many users unable to send messages or upload status updates. According to app outage tracking platform Down Detector, 81% of users reported issues with sending messages, while 16% encountered problems with the overall app experience.
Users took to social media platforms like X to express frustration, with one posting, “Is it just me or your WhatsApp is down as well? I am trying to upload status and it’s taking forever.” There was no immediate statement from WhatsApp regarding the outage. Some users also reported similar disruptions with Facebook and Instagram, which are also owned by Meta. Another user posted on X, “Hey @WhatsApp, is the app down? I’m having trouble sending messages – they’re just not going through. Anyone else facing this?”
This outage follows a similar incident in late February, when WhatsApp experienced a massive disruption, leaving users worldwide unable to use the app effectively, including the inability to connect, send messages, or make calls.
On the same day, digital payment services through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) were also disrupted, affecting millions of users across India. UPI services, which are crucial for online transactions and bill payments, were partially down, causing inconvenience for local shopping and business transactions.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates UPI services, acknowledged the issue on social media, attributing the disruptions to technical problems. “NPCI is currently facing intermittent technical issues, leading to partial UPI transaction declines,” it posted on X.
The NPCI assured that efforts were underway to resolve the issue and expressed regret for the inconvenience caused. By the afternoon, most UPI services were restored, but users continued to report intermittent issues.
