Current Numbers for Mobile Messengers (Q4 2015)
We are constantly doing market research at orat.io and one part of this research is to know the latest numbers of social networks and mobile messengers.
Therefore we are publishing our findings as short blog post to show how mobile messengers are gaining traction in terms of users and messages. The numbers we specifically looked at are monthly active users (MAU), daily messages sent and geographical market focus.
The updated version can be found here: Numbers for Q1 2016
Info: WhatsApp is the most popular messenger worldwide and was first released in 2009. In 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19bn. Website: whatsapp.com
Monthly active users: 900 million 1
Daily messages sent: 30 billion 2
Geographical focus: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, South America, Russia, SE Asia
Facebook Messenger
Info: Facebook Messenger is a spin-off application from Facebook's web chat and was first released in 2011. The app is available for iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry phones. Website: messenger.com
Monthly active users: 700 million 3
Daily messages sent: 30 billion 4
Geographical focus: North America, Western Europe, Australia, Eastern Europe
Telegram Messenger
Info: Telegram is a privacy aware messenger with focus on encryption and speed. It was created by Pavel Durov in 2014, the former founder of VK.com in Russia. telegram.org
Monthly active users: 62 million 5
Daily messages sent: 12 billion 6
Geographical focus: South America, Middle East, Russia, Western Europe, Eastern Europe
Info: WeChat is truly one of the most innovative messengers. It includes mobile payment, online ordering, taxi hailing and much more. It is China's most popular messenger, too. It was founded in 2011. wechat.com
Monthly active users: 600 million 7
Daily messages sent: NA
Geographical focus: China
Viber
Info: Founded 2010 in Israel, Viber was launched as Skype competitor, but it quickly became a popular app for messaging on mobile devices. Viber was sold for $900 million in 2014.
Monthly active users: 236 million 8
Daily messages sent: NA
Geographical focus: Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, SE Asia
Line
Info: Line was founded in 2011 and is a popular messenger in Asia, especially in Korea. However, the app is known for it's weak security standards and privacy issues.
Monthly active users: 212 million 9
Daily messages sent: NA
Geographical focus: Asia, Korea, Russia
Sources
http://www.wallstreetpoint.com/facebook-inc-nasdaqfb-owned-whatsapp-has-added-200-million-monthly-active-users-since-january/727277/, September 2015 ↩
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/07/whatsapp-growth-700m-users-facebook, January 2015 ↩
http://www.wallstreetpoint.com/facebook-inc-nasdaqfb-owned-whatsapp-has-added-200-million-monthly-active-users-since-january/727277/, September 2015 ↩
http://recode.net/2015/06/12/facebook-messenger-hits-700-million-total-users/, June 2015 ↩
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/13/telegram-says-its-hit-62-maus-and-messaging-activity-has-doubled/, May 2015 ↩
http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/21/telegram-now-seeing-12bn-daily-messages-up-from-1m-in-february/, September 2015 ↩
https://www.techinasia.com/wechat-monthly-active-users-q2-2015/, August 2015 ↩
https://www.techinasia.com/viber-mau-looking-monetization/, May 2015 ↩
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/07/30/messaging-app-line-ceo-asia-is-main-battlefield/, July 2015 ↩