Infographic: Everything You Need to Know About 5 Biggest Messenger Apps

If you own a smartphone, it is likely that you will have tried one or two messaging apps. They are a super convenient way of communicating with friends and family or for business and offer many more features than a traditional chat room. This includes voice and video calling, group chat, video conferencing, multi-player gaming, file transfer, integrated SMS support, and in some cases even mobile payments. With so many great options, it is no surprise that the popularity of messaging apps has grown and continues to grow at a remarkable rate. This and many other statistics and facts are covered in an interesting new infographic from Skilled.co.

Did you know between 2015 and 2016 there was a growth of 31.6%, to 1.4 billion people, and by 2018, 2 billion people are projected to be active on such platforms? This represents 80% of all smartphone users and about 35% of the entire population on earth. That is a very impressive number when we consider that only 20% of the global population own a television.

When we look at individual messaging apps, the growth rates vary dramatically. With 1 billion active users monthly Facebook Messenger ties with WhatsApp, however, Messenger has an average monthly user growth rate of 50 million, while WhatsApp is at 20 million. Over time, this means the Facebook-owned app will become the clear leader.

China’s WeChat has a growth rate of 14.67 million and currently has 818 million active monthly users, while Viber has just 249 million active users a month and a growth rate of 10 million. At the bottom of the heap is Japan’s Line app, which has just 220 million active monthly users (with the majority from Japan) and a growth rate of just 0.53 million.

To learn more about the rise of messaging apps and how the top 5 compare, be sure to check out the full infographic: