How WhatsApp took over the global conversation
- Jan 14
- 1 min read
WhatsApp delivers a hundred billion messages a day, around the same number as there are stars in the Milky Way. The platform has more than three billion active users each month—pretty much the same number as Facebook, more than YouTube, and roughly twice as many as Apple’s iMessage.
If you exclude China, where WhatsApp is banned, the app serves approximately half the human population older than fourteen. About three-quarters of WhatsApp users are on Android devices, with the rest on iPhones—which more or less reflects the global smartphone market.
One reason that WhatsApp has traditionally lagged in the U.S. is because of the unusual dominance of iPhones. But that is changing. Last year, the U.S. was one of the app’s fastest-growing markets, with the number of monthly users exceeding a hundred million for the first time.
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