WhatsApp can be briefly described as a cross-platform instant messaging service used by mobile devices and PCs. It is a cheap alternative to carrier-billed SMS, especially when you want to communicate internationally or as part of a group. WhatsApp allows users to share text, images, video, and voice messages and offer the ability to voice and video call.
As of 2022, WhatsApp has cemented its status as the most popular mobile messenger app worldwide, with an estimated 2 billion monthly active users. This easily outranks the Chinese alternative, WeChat, which has 1.2 billion active users. Even Facebook Messenger boasts just 1.3 billion global users, so it’s clear that WhatsApp is the most in-demand platform for messaging and communication.Â
As of April 2022, WhatsApp has 2.44 billion active users worldwide. This number is constantly growing as new users sign up to utilize the applications’ many functions daily. As a result of WhatsApp having such a large number of global users, it is subsequently the leading communication channel for smartphone users everywhere! To add to this, WhatsApp is also the 3rd most-used social platform, second only to Facebook (with 2.8 billion users) and YouTube (boasting 2.29 billion users).
According to Meta’s latest figures, the WhatsApp application has around 2 billion active monthly users. This starkly contrasts with 2016, when WhatsApp had just 1 billion users. The following statistics show WhatsApp’s active monthly user growth since 2016
February 2016 – 1 billion
January 2017 – 1.2 billionÂ
July 2017 – 1.3 billion
December 2017 – 1.5 billionÂ
February 2020 – 2 billionÂ
July 2021 – 2+ billion
April 2022 – 2+ billionÂ
The growth of WhatsApp has broken records worldwide, especially in the years since Meta took over the company for a bid of 16 billion dollars.Â
100 billion messages are exchanged on WhatsApp daily, or around 4.2 billion messages per hour, 69 million per minute, and more than 1.1 million per second! It’s estimated that at least 1 billion people use WhatsApp daily. WhatsApp is the world’s most popular mobile communications application!Â
There’s only been one slight dip in the number of people that use or download WhatsApp due to a change in the data processing. Whatsapp harvests data from each user from 9 different sources, including purchases, financial info, and contact info, for app functionality and more. This triggered a loss of 30% in downloads in January 2021, when the application announced that it would give users’ data to its parent company, Meta.Â
India has the highest number of WhatsApp users, accounting for more than 487.5 million WhatsApp users in total. Despite this already large number of Indian WhatsApp users, the amount of users continues to grow in the country by 16.6%.
The number of WhatsApp users in multiple other countries is growing, too. For example, Russia is seeing its WhatsApp numbers increase by 17%, while France is witnessing a growth of 16.6%.Â
WhatsApp is available in 180 countries around the globe; however, in some locations (such as China), it is unavailable. This dramatically impacts the world’s percentage of users, as China accounts for around 1.5 billion people. However, there are still nearly 2.5 billion users on WhatsApp around the globe – this accounts for about 33% of the world’s population (DataReportal, 2021). Those who need a mobile messaging app will likely head to WhatsApp as their go-to, especially in developed countries where technology is standard.Â
There are many users on WhatsApp, with people making the most of the application from all corners of the world. The growth of WhatsApp is record-breaking, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. These statistics help to represent better how many users are on WhatsApp.Â
