Ofcom fines Meta £450,000 over inaccurate WhatsApp Business data
Key Facts
The UK’s Ofcom fined Meta £450,000 after finding that the company provided inaccurate information about WhatsApp Business in response to regulatory requests, according to a decision published by the regulator on 12 November 2026. The case concerned the accuracy of data Ofcom sought to monitor the business messaging market and review the wholesale market for A2P SMS termination. The regulator recorded five separate breaches of information requirements, linked to five questions in two statutory requests. Ofcom said it had decided that "a fine of £450,000 on Meta is appropriate." The requested information included conversation volumes and revenue associated with the WhatsApp Business service.
Ofcom set the fine at £600,000 before discount, then reduced it by 25% after Meta requested settlement of the investigation and admitted liability. The settlement request and admission were therefore reflected in the final amount, while the five breaches remained recorded in the decision. The regulator said the case did not concern the content or privacy of messages, but the information the company provided about WhatsApp Business activity. The data was required to build a regulatory picture of the scale and revenue of business messaging. The investigation found that the responses included data on direct and indirect conversations, categories Ofcom needed to distinguish in its market analysis.
The statutory requests began on 31 July 2024, when Ofcom sought data on the volumes and revenue of direct and indirect WhatsApp conversations from April 2021 to March 2024. The second request covered the same data for April 2024 to March 2025, allowing the regulator to examine information for two consecutive periods. Ofcom sent the two requests and three subsequent requests for clarification between July 2024 and August 2025. The questions were intended to support monitoring of the retail business messaging market, as well as a review of the wholesale market for A2P SMS termination. Ofcom said the repeated failures required it to spend additional regulatory resources identifying errors, seeking clarification and verifying the data.
In explaining one inaccurate response, Meta said a previous calculation had overstated the number of direct conversations because it combined conversations provided directly with those provided indirectly. The company said it recalculated the figure using the correct filters after discovering the problem. Ofcom’s questions covered volume and revenue data, making the distinction between the two categories a central part of the information requested. The regulator considered that providing inaccurate information in response to statutory requests raised a compliance issue beyond the calculation error itself. It said such failures could "undermine the integrity of the regulatory system and harm the interests of citizens and consumers."
The case comes against a backdrop in which Ofcom was measuring the reach of WhatsApp Business alongside companies’ messages sent over mobile networks. In a correction published in September 2025, the regulator said WhatsApp Business conversations totalled just under 60 million in the first quarter of 2024, compared with just under 10 million RBM messages over the same period. Across 2023/24, A2P SMS messages terminated by the four largest telecoms companies exceeded 20 billion, compared with just over 187 million conversations through WhatsApp Business. Ofcom estimated WhatsApp Business’ share at 0.9% of A2P SMS message volumes in 2023/24. These comparisons explain why the regulator sought accurate volume and revenue data when assessing the business messaging market.
Ofcom had administratively closed its review of the A2P SMS termination market in October 2025, after receiving voluntary commitments from four large telecoms companies. The regulator said those commitments collectively covered more than 90% of the market and would remain in force until the end of 2028. It said its administrative decision at the time was not to continue the market review then. But it said it would continue monitoring the market and could intervene in future if necessary. The fine decision issued on 12 November 2026 places the accuracy of information provided by Meta within this ongoing oversight of the messaging market.
Meta shares closed at $628.77 on 11 November 2026, according to EL7 data, the session before the fine decision was published. The available data do not include a share price for the session on which the decision was published, so this figure refers only to the previous close. The fine followed the period of requests and clarifications that ran from July 2024 to August 2025, and the regulator’s subsequent finding of five separate breaches. The final amount remains £450,000 after the discount linked to Meta’s settlement request and admission of liability. Ofcom said it would continue monitoring the message termination market and could intervene later if it considered that necessary.