WhatsApp is already the most popular way to message friends and family outside the US, and is beginning to challenge the dominance of iMessage's blue bubble here.
Collabstr analyzed data from Pew Research and DataReportal to determine the extent to which WhatsApp dominates internet users outside the U.S. The analysis used the World Bank's country income groupings, which include dozens of middle-income countries, including India, the Philippines, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Mexico, Brazil and China.
According to a Pew Research Center poll, WhatsApp and Facebook will be the most used media sites across middle-income countries by 2023. WhatsApp has about 3 billion active users worldwide. However, only 29% of U.S. adults use the platform, according to Pew Research Center data.
Recent reports suggest that this may change as Americans realize the ubiquity of WhatsApp and the company rolls out new features like stickers and custom chat themes that are more appealing to users.WhatsApp was the sixth most downloaded app in the U.S. in 2023, seeing a 5% year-over-year increase, according to analytics firm Apptopia.
A statement shared by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the platform backed up Pew Research Center's estimates. According to Zuckerberg, roughly one in three people living in the U.S. uses WhatsApp. The platform surpassed 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. at the end of July.
The move to attract more users in the U.S. market coincides with Meta being more open-minded about breaking down the walls between its apps and those of its competitors. The social media company recently made Meta's X (formerly Twitter) competitor, Threads, compatible with Fediverse, a sharing protocol that connects various social media networks that have opted in. Networks like Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky and others that have opted in can read posts and follow users across the various Fediverse apps, regardless of the app or device being used.
It's a strategy Apple has been reluctant to adopt, as it maintains a set of services available only to iPhone and Mac users.Apple continues to dominate the U.S. mobile phone market: More than 60 percent of smartphones sold in the U.S. are iPhones, according to market research firm Counterpoint.
But outside the United States, where Android dominates the mobile phone market, WhatsApp has a significant share of smartphone users.