Most Popular Messaging Apps Worldwide in 2024
As conversational marketing rises in popularity, businesses looking to engage with consumers and form genuine connections with them are going to have to start meeting them and communicating with them where they’re at: messaging apps.
Most popular messaging apps in the world: Table
|
Rank |
Messaging app |
Number of monthly active users |
|
1 |
|
2,000 million |
|
2 |
|
1,343 million |
|
3 |
Facebook Messenger |
1,010 million |
|
4 |
Telegram |
900 million |
|
5 |
Snapchat |
800 million |
|
6 |
|
554 million |
Most popular messaging apps in the world ranked by number of users
1. WhatsApp (2 billion users)
According to the latest data, as of 2024, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world, with two billion monthly active users.
The chat app’s user base has been growing quickly and consistently over the years. In fact, in 2016, there were one billion WhatsApp users, half of what there are now. The large majority of WhatsApp users are located in India. This is followed by Brazil, the United States, Indonesia, and Mexico.
2. WeChat (1.3 billion users)
After WhatsApp, the second-most used messaging app is WeChat, more commonly known as Weixin in China. It has 1.3 billion active users globally, about two-thirds of WhatsApp’s. WeChat users are also predominantly located in China. Nevertheless, an increasing number of businesses based outside of China are starting to sign up for the app. That’s because Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are hard to access in China, which makes WeChat a much more efficient way to reach the massive Chinese market.
3. Facebook Messenger (1 billion users)
The third-most popular messaging app in the world is Facebook Messenger. Worldwide, there are one billion Facebook Messenger users. Incidentally, both WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are owned by the same company, Meta (formerly known as Facebook).
The number of people using Facebook Messenger has been hovering around the 1 billion mark for the past two years, reaching a low of 931 million in January 2023 and a high of 1.04 billion the following quarter.
Not only are WhatsApp, WeChat, and Facebook Messenger the most popular messaging apps in the world, but they’re also the only ones with more than one billion monthly active users.
4. Telegram (900 million users)
The three most popular messaging apps worldwide have a pretty strong lead over their competitors. The fourth-most used messaging app is Telegram, with 900 million users. The cloud-based chat app has seen its user base grow steadily in recent years. Telegram saw an influx of 70 million new users in October 2021 alone, on the day Facebook suffered an outage that affected both Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
5. Snapchat (800 million users)
Fifth on the list of the top messaging apps worldwide is Snapchat, with 800 million users. If India is one of your target markets, Snapchat is a great app through which you can reach buyers. It’s home to the largest number of Snapchat users, at 202.5 million. The United States ranks next, with 105.7 million Snapchat users.
6. QQ (554 million users)
Last but not least, QQ is the sixth-most popular messaging app in the world, with 554 million users. Both WeChat and QQ are owned by Chinese tech firm Tencent, referred to as “China’s Facebook” by some market analysts.