Just like how each country has its own traditional cuisine … every country has their own preferred messaging apps too.
More than half of mobile users have at least one messaging app installed on their phones. SMS based texting is now replaced by VoIP apps, and in every country, one messaging app dominates the market.
Here’s a list of the most popular messaging apps being used in every country.
Most popular Android Messaging Apps by Country in 2019
1. WhatsApp
According to recent studies conducted in 2019, WhatsApp Messenger is now the leading mobile messaging app in 112 countries. Founded in 2009, WhatsApp has now 1.5 billion active users in over 180 countries and is the third most downloaded Android app in the world.
2. Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger is the leading messaging app in 57 countries. Founded in 2008, Facebook Messenger has over 2.41 billion monthly active users as of 2019. Both WhatsApp and Messenger are owned by Facebook, however, WhatsApp is more popular by countries than Facebook Messenger. Facebook Messenger was the most popular mobile messenger app in the United States with 108.7 million unique U.S. users however, the number of WhatsApp users in the USA is predicted to grow to 25.6 million by 2021.
3. Viber
After WhatsApp and Messenger, Viber is the third popular messaging app in the world. Viber is the leading messaging app in 10 countries and is mostly popular in Eastern European countries. Founded in 2010, the app has more than 500 million downloads coming from Google Play Store.
4. WeChat
Almost 90% of WeChat’s users are from China. WeChat was originally founded in 2011 as Weixin, however, it was rebranded for the international stage as WeChat, adding features like voice and text chatting, bizarre stickers, and the “Friendshake,” which lets users add each other by shaking their phones simultaneously. As of 2019, WeChat is the fifth most-used app in the world and claims to have one billion daily active users.
5. Line
After WeChat, Line has grown into the second largest social networking and messaging app in Asia. Currently, LINE is most widely used in Japan with over 78 million monthly active users and has over 187 million monthly active users worldwide. Founded in 2011, Line became the most successful social chat app in terms of revenue generation in Japan.
6.IMO
IMO has a strong user base in just 2 Asian countries. Founded in 2007 by a former Google employee, IMO has been installed on Android devices more than 500 million times and has over 200 million users.
Top countries that use WhatsApp: India, Germany, United Kingdom, Russia, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, Central and South Africa, GCC, and South America.
Top countries that use Facebook Messenger: USA, Canada, Cuba, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Belgium, Poland Cyprus, Greece, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Georgia, Poland, North Africa, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Madagascar, Phillippines, Australia, and Newzealand.
Top countries that use Viber : Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Tajikistan.
Top countries that use WeChat: China
Top countries that use Line: Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand.
Top countries that use IMO: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
Other Messaging Apps
Telegram was once the leading messaging app in Russia and Iran, however this year, the app has been replaced by WhatsApp among Russian and Iranian users. BBM was also the leading messaging app in Indonesia, however, the company shut down earlier this year and all its users eventually switched to LINE. Other messaging apps such as Pinngle Safe Messenger, Signal, and Threema started to gain popularity in different countries mainly because many users are now preferring to switch to more safe, secure and private messaging apps.
