WHATSAPP, FACEBOOK MESSENGER AND OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA APPS’ PENETRATION, GLOBAL USAGE AND STATISTICS (2020)
WhatsApp was created in 2009 by computer programmers Brian Acton and Jan Koum – (who happen to be former employees of Yahoo), Koum came up with the name WhatsApp because it sounded like “what’s up”. Facebook quickly sensed a potential threat in the services it was rendering, this led to Facebook’s acquisition of Whatsapp for $19.3billion (£14.64bn) in February 2014 and this remains its biggest acquisition to date and probably one of the largest tech acquisitions in the tech space history. In January 2018, WhatsApp already had over 1.5billion users all over the world.
Around the world today, WhatsApp has grown to become a dominant force in the digital landscape, making it the primary communication tool in some countries, and even though the tool has been denied usage in some countries, it has been vital for a lot of people in dangerous and deadly situations.
WhatsApp is referred to as “The green messaging app” by many and it remains the market leader in its sector. Since its inception, it has added features such as Status story, voice calling, video calling, group calls (video and voice), dark mode, WhatsApp business, fingerprint lock, and the list goes on and on…
WhatsApp founder Jan Koum, due to his profits from Facebook acquisitions currently ranks fourth among social media billionaires in the world with an estimated personal net worth of 9.7 billion U.S. dollars.
There are only 25 countries in the world where WhatsApp is currently not the market leader.
According to the statistics below, WhatsApp has constantly grown to remain near the top of the list of the most popular messaging apps for nearly 10 years now, and it keeps waxing stronger.
Below is a list of WhatsApp statistics to show how incredible the app is and how it has helped to connect people across the globe.
WHATSAPP STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
- WhatsApp has 300 million daily active users worldwide.
- India is the biggest WhatsApp market in the world.
- WhatsApp lets its users delete messages sent by mistake within 7 minutes.
- There are 3 million companies using WhatsApp Business.
- More than 60 million WhatsApp video calls are made daily.
- Whatsapp is not in about 12 countries in the world.
- Whatsapp tried to acquire Snapchat, but their offer was rejected.
- Whatsapp uses a high level of end-to-end encryption.
- There are over 3 million users of WhatsApp business
- An average user checks WhatsApp more than 25 times daily.
- WhatsApp is valued more than the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of some countries
- In Africa, Whatsapp is the most popular app (With Few Exceptions in North & East Africa).
WHATSAPP ACTIVE USERS & USAGE
Source: We are social, 2019
Whatsapp’s 1.3 billion monthly active users (1 billion daily users) as of July 2017 is enough fact to show how Whatsapp has grown to dominate the global communications environment. (Whatsapp is in second place after Facebook). With the addition of many interesting features, many more users were added to the tally of WhatsApp users. In 2019, WhatsApp became the most popular global mobile messenger app worldwide with approximately 1.6 billion monthly active users in over 180 countries, surpassing Facebook Messenger at 1.3 billion and WeChat at 1.1 billion users. Looking at the monthly active users of the top 3 most popular messaging apps, the top 3 apps: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat has well over 4 billion active monthly users.
This speaks of the extraordinary user growth the app and social media as a whole has experienced. And just so you know, when Whatsapp was initially acquired by Facebook, it could only boast of a third of that population. Today, Whatsapp is the third most popular social network worldwide after Facebook and YouTube.But it is the most popular mobile messenger app.
In terms of downloads, Whatsapp is ranked third with Facebook and Facebook Messenger coming in 1st and 2ndplaces respectively.
The WhatsApp Status (a clone of snapchat stories) feature which was added in 2017 now has over 450 million daily users.
Despite the app being widely used in most countries, it still maintains the number one position amongst most blocked communication tools, especially in countries where the government usually censor citizens’ information.
How most popular Apps rank in major countries and regions of the world
Source: We are social, 2019
USA
Source: We are social, 2019
In spite of it being founded and launched in the U.S, Whatsapp still has it’s market stronger outside of the United States. As of June 2019, Facebook Messenger was the most widely-used messaging app in the U.S. with a 57.2% reach, while Snapchat ranked second with a 25.9 % reach. WhatsApp is placed as the third most widely-used messaging app in the US (with most active users being Female between 25-34 years of age). However, the number of WhatsApp users in the United States is likely to grow to 85.8 million users in 2023.
UK
Source: We are social, 2019
About 58% of internet users in the UK make use of Whatsapp, which makes WhatsApp the fourth biggest user-base app in the UK. However, Whatsapp is the app with the highest number of monthly active users. (Male between 25-34 years). Whatsapp is also the most downloaded app in the UK.
About 58% of internet users in the UK make use of Whatsapp, which makes WhatsApp the fourth biggest user-base app in the UK. However, Whatsapp is the app with the highest number of monthly active users. (Male between 25-34 years). Whatsapp is also the most downloaded app in the UK.
INDIA
Source: We are social, 2019
In India, Whatsapp is the third most used app after Facebook and Youtube, but Whatsapp is the app with the most active users in India. With its users ranging between 300 – 400 million.
CHINA
WeChat dominates the market in China. The app now has over 1 billion users, of which 900 million use the app daily. This makes WeChat the third most-used app globally
SPAIN
Source: We are social, 2019
More than 87% of Spain’s population use the green messenger app actively, making it the most popular app in the country. Facebook Messenger, which ranks second has a usage rate of 43% of the population.
87% of all smartphone users in Spain say they actively use WhatsApp on their smartphone. Facebook, on the other hand, is used only by 72%.
98% of female teens between 16 and 24 years of age use WhatsApp on a daily basis, while 92% of their male counterparts use the messaging app.
FRANCE
Source: We are social, 2019
Of all active internet users (i.e. 92% of the French population), 58% actively use social media. Facebook Messenger with a reach of 51%, is the most popular messaging app used in France and WhatsApp follows as the second most used messenger with a reach of 31%.
Of all active internet users (i.e. 92% of the French population), 58% actively use social media. Facebook Messenger with a reach of 51%, is the most popular messaging app used in France and WhatsApp follows as the second most used messenger with a reach of 31%.
Social networks are used evenly among women (51%) and men (49%) in France, and the age group of 12-39 years obviously dominates in terms of social media usage.
LATIN AMERICA
With about 60% of the population in all Latin American countries actively using the green messaging app, this makes Latin America one of the robust market regions for WhatsApp while Facebook Messenger, YouTube and Instagram all rank far behind WhatsApp.
For countries within that region, it is surprising to see the wide reach and strong usage of social media in general. With a reach of 72%, Uruguay has the strongest usage of the app, followed by Chile with 71% and Argentina with 70%.
GERMANY
Facebook officially announced that 58 million people in Germany use WhatsApp every day. While about 18.1 million people in Germany use Facebook Messenger every day (23 million people use the app monthly), and by so, it’s the second most used app after Whatsapp in Germany.
According to Statista, in April 2019, almost 10 million people in Germany still use Skype every day, making it the 4th most used app. Telegram Messenger ranks 5th with daily active users of 7.8 million people in Germany. Snapchat ranks 6th with 7.2 million daily users in Germany (Statista April 2019). And Threema ranks 7th with its 6 million daily users in Germany (Statista July 2019).
ASIA-PACIFIC REGION
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| Source: Nexmo |
WhatsApp is a popular communication app in countries within the Asia-Pacific Region: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, just to name a few. Though the market landscape in the Asia-Pacific Region is locally dominated by regional app providers such as WeChat, KakaoTalk, yet WhatsApp still leads strongly. The five leading social media apps in this region are WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Viber and LINE.
NIGERIA
Source: We are social, 2019
A country which boasts of a population of over 200 million people have over 100 million internet users as of 2019, of which 85% use WhatsApp, 78% use Facebook and Instagram ranks 3rd with 57% internet users.
NUMBER OF MESSAGES SENT & CALLS MADE
Whatsapp is about more than just sending and receiving messages as its users depend on it for calling, sending and receiving media files.
As of May 2018, WhatsApp users sent 65 billion messages per day, with over 30 million messages sent per minute. And since the 4G network has penetrated into virtually all developed and developing countries, there’s been an increase in the use of WhatsApp “calling” feature. WhatsApp users now spend over 2 billion minutes making voice and video calls per day with about 60 million WhatsApp video calls made per day.
Frankly speaking, a huge chunk of time is now being spent on messaging apps and social media generally (most especially by millennials), because they now help to bridge the information and communication gap. As reported by Apptopia, between May and July 2018, over 85 billion hours were spent on WhatsApp as compared to 31 billion hours spent on Facebook. And this figure is expected to increase by over 20% come 2021.
Source: apptopia
Concluding Notes
WhatsApp is an app that offers nothing that one could not achieve using traditional SMS messaging. Though, it has a wide range of other functions that come in different phases for consumption. Yet, some worrying questions have always been asked around data privacy, as this has affected WhatsApp’s reputation.
Business-wise, WhatsApp has been a ‘free-to-use’ app without having any form of advertisement running on it. Which poises a concern of how the app generates revenue for the owners.
Well, I think in the long run (2019 or 2020), WhatsApp plans to allow adverts to run in the status area of the app and also make the app subscription-based. This has been part of the plan for long and its gradually being rolled out.
Remember also that Whatsapp has played a key role in the digital revolution and it has helped to provide an alternative to the expensive telecoms charges across all markets
Conclusively, this modest app can be said to have changed the world, though slightly but wide-ragingly and It’s just hard to imagine a WhatsApp-free global environment.
MORE COUNTRIES WILL BE UPDATED IN THIS ARTICLE FROM TIME-TO-TIME
