Insights
The most popular messaging apps in the world by country
Insights
People around the world spend a huge share of their online time on messaging apps. According to the latest Datareportal insights from October 2025, chat apps remain among the most used digital services – and even show an upward trend.
What does that look like country by country? Which messaging trends are emerging globally, and what do they mean for businesses? We’ve crunched the latest official numbers and compiled worldwide stats, plus a country-by-country view of the most popular messaging apps.
From WhatsApp to Messenger to Signal, there’s no shortage of messaging apps. Some, like WhatsApp, have dominated for years. Others, like Signal, are gaining ground, while apps such as Viber or WeChat command strong regional followings. And yet others, like Snapchat, are popular with younger generations.
So, let’s see how the world’s top messaging apps stack up.
For this comparison, we looked at the latest official monthly active users (MAUs) and ranked apps accordingly. Let’s dive in!
Data disclaimer: For some messenger apps, the companies behind them haven’t published user stats in years. While we used the most recent official data to rank them, keep in mind that it’s not always the most up-to-date information.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in the first quarter of 2025 that WhatsApp (owned by Meta) has hit the three billion user mark. This makes WhatsApp by far the most popular messaging app in the world by user numbers.
WeChat and its Chinese mainland version Weixin are the messenger apps for Chinese users around the globe. While users in China use the Weixin version, users abroad access WeChat. According to WeChat owner Tencent, the combined user numbers of WeChat and Weixin reached 1.41 billion MAUs in June 2025. That’s up 2.9% compared to 1.37 billion MAUs in 2024.
After years of declining user numbers, Facebook’s Messenger surpassed the one billion monthly user mark again in 2025. When looking specifically at the potential ad audience, Messenger counts 942 million users.
In March 2025, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the messaging app had reached one billion MAUs (up from 950 million in 2024), making it the fourth most popular messaging app in the world.
In Q2 of 2025, Snapchat reported that the app had reached 932 monthly active users – a 3.56% increase quarter over quarter.
Tencent’s other popular messaging app, QQ, counts 532 million MAUs as of June 2025. That’s a 0.4% decrease from the previous quarter and 7% down year over year (YoY).
In 2014, Viber’s parent company Rakuten said that it had reached 209 million MAUs. No newer numbers have been released by Rakuten since. 2025 third-party estimates vary widely between 260 and 820 million MAUs. Viber is popular in Russia, Eastern Europe, Greece, and the Philippines.
Line is a popular messaging app in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia, and is owned by the SoftBank Group. In its latest report from March 2025, the LY Corporation (LYC) puts Line’s monthly active user numbers at 194 million. LYC is a Japanese internet company owned by A Holdings, a joint venture between SoftBank and Naver.
Known for its high security, the Signal messenger has a loyal user base. According to an April 2025 interview in the Swiss newspaper NZZ with Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, Signal has somewhere between 70 and 100 million MAUs. The BBC, on the other hand, said the messaging app only had 40 to 70 million active users in April 2025.
According to its Q2 2025 numbers, KakaoTalk, the South Korean super-app, had 54.27 million MAUs globally as of December 2024 – sustaining its continuous growth over the last two years. KakaoTalk is mostly used in South Korea where it’s by far the most popular messaging app in the country.
While these services sit inside larger platforms or do more than pure messaging, Instagram Direct Messenger, iMessage, and Discord also fall into the universe of popular messaging apps.
Instagram Direct Messenger is Instagram’s built-in direct messaging feature for private chats, and many brands use it for support and customer care. Meta doesn’t break out separate user counts for Instagram Direct anymore, so exact MAUs aren’t public. One useful signal: In Meta’s Q1 2025 remarks, Mark Zuckerberg said Instagram now sees about as many messages sent each day as Messenger, which still serves over a billion people monthly.
iMessage doesn’t have an official user count, since Apple doesn’t publish individual user numbers for its different services and devices. According to some estimates, there are currently somewhere between 1.38 billion and over 1.4 billion active iPhone users worldwide. And while iMessage is installed on every iPhone by default, it doesn’t mean that every iPhone user also chats on iMessage. Nevertheless, it’s safe to say that iMessage usage is substantial.
Discord blends community, forums, and chat, and it’s huge with gamers. The company currently cites 200+ million monthly active users worldwide.
Now that you’ve got the lay of the land, let’s zoom in on which apps lead in specific countries.
When you look at the most popular messaging apps by country, the picture gets more nuanced. WhatsApp still leads in many markets, but regional preferences vary widely, something to keep in mind for your customer communications.
The table below shows the leading messaging apps worldwide, by country.
| Country | Messaging App |
|---|---|
| Argentina | |
| Australia | Messenger |
| Austria | |
| Belgium | |
| Brazil | |
| Canada | Messenger |
| Chile | |
| China | |
| Colombia | |
| Denmark | Messenger |
| Finland | Telegram |
| France | |
| Germany | |
| India | |
| Indonesia | |
| Ireland | |
| Italy | |
| Japan | Line |
| Kenya | |
| South Korea | KakaoTalk |
| Malaysia | |
| Mexico | |
| Netherlands | |
| New Zealand | Messenger |
| Nigeria | |
| Norway | Messenger |
| Pakistan | |
| Peru | |
| Philippines | Messenger |
| Portugal | |
| Russia | Telegram |
| Singapore | |
| South Africa | |
| Spain | |
| Sweden | Messenger |
| Switzerland | |
| Turkey | |
| U.A.E. | |
| UK | |
| USA | Messenger |
| Vietnam | Zalo |
Drilling down this list,
It’s hard to miss that the world has a very clear favorite when it comes to messaging apps: WhatsApp! If you’re putting the popularity of WhatsApp on a map, the world looks pretty green.
But remember that consumers typically don’t exclusively chat on one single messaging app. Most actually use a variety of platforms for different purposes – and they expect businesses to meet them there. And there are also variations in preferences when it comes to different demographics.
When using messaging apps for your customer communications, we recommend digging deeper to really understand and adapt to your target audience’s specific needs and preferred channels.
These user stats show that people worldwide use WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, and other chat apps not only to stay in touch with friends and family, but increasingly to connect with businesses. Our own data confirms that. In our 2025 global survey The state of customer communications, about 30% of users in countries like Brazil and Mexico say they prefer messaging channels like WhatsApp for receiving promotions from companies.
Given the interactive and engaging nature of messaging apps, this is not surprising. We’re seeing a very similar trend with Google’s RCS messaging service in the U.S. and Europe.
The consumer move towards conversational channels has been a global trend for years. From a business perspective, it’s a powerful opportunity to meet customers on the channels they already use and love, and to craft more meaningful experiences.
That’s why platforms such as WhatsApp, WeChat, Apple Messages for Business, and Messenger offer dedicated business solutions. These are fairly easy to use, especially if you access them through experienced providers like Sinch.
Even if you want to use more than one messaging app in your customer communication, you don’t need to juggle five different inboxes or tools. Modern business messaging platforms unify these channels in one place. With Sinch’s Conversation API, for example, you can reach customers via WhatsApp, Messenger, Apple Messages for Business (iMessage), Telegram, Viber – and even SMS and RCS.
Not sure where to start? Check out our global communication guide to identify the best channel mix for your audience.
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