Filipinos are now Rakuten Viber's largest source of Viber Plus revenue worldwide, and the number paying ₱99 a month for the tier rose 34% year on year. That was the headline from a Makati media briefing on October 13, where the company also said the Philippines leads every one of its markets in daily time spent in the app. The Philippine Star reported the subscription figure alongside a 17% rise in monthly active users this year; BusinessWorld's account put year-to-date Viber Plus revenue growth at 75%.
How much is Viber Plus in the Philippines?
Viber Plus costs ₱99 a month in the Philippines, according to The Philippine Star's report from the briefing. For that, the paid tier removes ads from the app, lets you edit and delete sent messages without leaving a trace, and adds an invisible mode that hides your online status while you can still see whether others are active. The core messaging service stays free, Rakuten Viber said, as TechSabado reported.
By our math, ₱99 a month works out to ₱1,188 a year. Rakuten Viber did not disclose how many Filipinos actually pay, only the growth rates, so there is no way to size the subscriber base from what was shared.
The numbers Rakuten Viber shared
The company gave growth rates rather than totals. These are its own figures, reported by BusinessWorld and TechSabado from the briefing:
- Monthly active users in the Philippines: projected to grow 16.5% year on year (The Philippine Star rounded this to 17%).
- Average daily time spent in the app: up 24% year on year, placing the Philippines first globally per user.
- Paying Viber Plus subscribers: up 34% year on year; Viber Plus revenue year to date: up 75%.
- Viber Dating monthly active users: up 96% to 97% year on year, with the Philippines accounting for 56% of new dating profiles created globally this year.
- Active business accounts: up 20.5%; business interactions: up 127%, the company's second-fastest-growing market on that measure.
Senior Director for Asia-Pacific David Tse told BusinessWorld the growth has two parts: more people using Viber, and existing users finding more reasons to use it, increasingly to reach businesses. The Philippine Star added the company's estimate that 41% of the Philippine population uses the app for work chats.
Is Viber Pay available in the Philippines yet?
Not yet for new users, and the company is still waiting on a final go-ahead from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). Chief Revenue Officer Cristina Constandache told the briefing the product is commercially ready and the company has obtained the licences it needs, but regulators still need to give final clearance, per BusinessWorld.
That matches what Viber's own support site currently says. Its Viber Pay FAQ for the Philippines states that activating a wallet is "temporarily unavailable" while the service is updated. The same page explains that any funds would be held at a Philippine bank in an account of Viber's partner Paynamics, a payment service provider regulated by the BSP, and that wallet-to-wallet transfers would be free. GMA News reported back in February 2025 that more than a million Filipinos had joined the waitlist and that a launch was then planned for the second half of 2025. Twenty months later, the launch date is still open.
If you joined the waitlist, there is nothing to do yet. If you want to send money inside a chat app today, the e-wallets already licensed here remain the option; 84% of Filipino adults faced a scam attempt in the past year, so a new wallet landing in a messaging app is also one more surface to watch.
A Department of Tourism tie-up for the holiday season
Rakuten Viber is partnering with the Department of Tourism (DOT) so travellers can find DOT-accredited tour operators through Viber Business accounts and message them directly. Tse told BusinessWorld the aim is to make small, fragmented local tour businesses discoverable inside the app, timed for the fourth-quarter holiday travel period. The Philippine Star said hotels and restaurants are also meant to come onto the platform through the deal. No launch date for the DOT feature was given.
What the AI features do with your messages
Viber's AI tools, including an "Ask ChatGPT" integration with OpenAI, are user-triggered: only the text you select is sent for processing, and names and user IDs are encrypted, TechSabado reported from the briefing. Constandache told BusinessWorld that none of the data used to run those features is used to train AI models. Viber also pointed to existing arrangements with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), Globe, Smart and DITO on spam and fraud measures, and to verification badges on business accounts and combined AI and human moderation on Viber Dating. If you receive a suspicious message on any platform, the free ScamCheck.ph service backed by the BSP can scan it.
The briefing also listed Viber eSIM among the services the company is pushing in the Philippines, though no local pricing for it was shared.
