The Most Popular Messaging Apps (Around the Globe)

What’s your go-to messaging app? You may not know it, but your answer will largely depend on where you live. 

We analyzed Android data from 93 countries, using Similarweb’s market research intelligence, to determine the most popular messaging apps across the world. We found that overall, there are five top messaging apps dominating the global market. Let’s dive right in.

The Most Popular Messaging Apps by Country 

Of the 94 countries that we examined, WhatsApp was the world leader, snagging the top-messaging app spot in 58 countries, 30% of the world and 63% of this dataset. These countries include: Argentina, Czech Republic, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and more. 

Facebook Messenger came in second overall, with the highest popularity in 15 countries including the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, and Thailand.

Telegram was the only other messaging app to win three or more countries, showing strong popularity in 11 places overall including Armenia, Egypt, Lithuania, and Venezuela.  

Viber has a strong presence in Europe, winning both Greece and Ukraine. And Line is maintaining popularity in Asia, with the highest performance in Japan and Taiwan. 

Apps that only claim one country include Discord (Slovenia), KakaoTalk (South Korea), Phoenix (Algeria), Zalo (Vietnam), and WeChat (China).

Top 5 apps: Performance by country 

WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Viber, and Line are the top five most popular messaging apps, representing 88 countries, or 45% of the world and 95% of this dataset.

Below is a breakdown of the performance of each mobile messaging app in three high-performing countries. Metrics analyzed included:

• Install Penetration: The percentage of devices in the defined market with the app installed on average
• Downloads: App downloads from the Google Android Store in the given time period 
• Unique Installs: Unique app installs during the given time period 
• Daily Active Users: The average amount of unique daily active users
• Monthly Active Users: The average amount of unique monthly active users

WhatsApp

WhatsApp dominates the Israeli market for mobile messaging apps, with an install penetration of almost 90%. DAUs and MAUs are highest in Germany, but this makes sense given the size of the population.

Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger’s install penetration averages around 66%, with Canada topping the leaderboard at 68%. DAUs are highest in Poland, but France is doing the best job at attracting new users and has the highest unique installs.

Telegram

Telegram’s penetration averages around 30% in its top three countries, with Russia winning at 36%. Unique installs are also the highest in Russia at 5.6 million between January – March 2021. Italy outperforms Spain, especially when comes to DAUs and MAUs.

Viber

Viber is very popular in Ukraine, with an install penetration of 80%, followed closely by Greece at 77%. Although Russia has a much lower install penetration than the other two countries in this adset, it is the country with the highest amount of new users and unique installs during the time period.

Line

Line is becoming increasingly popular across Asia, illustrated by its strong presence in both Thailand, Taiwan, and Japan. Although Japan has the lowest install penetration of these three counties, it is doing a better job than Taiwan in getting new users and retaining existing ones.

Mobile messaging apps to watch

Although the mobile messaging world is currently dominated by these top five apps, there are a few key players to watch as competition in the coming months. 

Discord, which is the top mobile messaging app in Slovenia, is gaining popularity in other countries. In March 2021, the app jumped 11 spots in the Google Play Store overall and saw a 3.2% increase in downloads compared to the previous month. Discord is also growing in Denmark, Finland, Portugal, and South Korea. 

Although Signal didn’t make the list of the top mobile messaging apps this year, it is the third most popular choice for users in Hong Kong, after WhatsApp and Google Chrome. The app is also gaining popularity in Mexico, Poland, Switzerland, Slovakia, Australia, and France. 

With work-from-home becoming a permanent fixture for most companies, Slack is experiencing rapid growth. In Japan, downloads for this app grew 66% in March 2021 compared to the month before. In the U.S. active daily users have been steadily increasing, reaching 508.1K last month, a 6.3% rise from February 2021. 

Be the first to know what’s trending

This is just a sample of the type of data and insights you can collect with Similarweb’s Research Intelligence Tool. Try it now for free to see for yourself which apps are gaining popularity, which ones are losing users, and most importantly, where you fit into the market.