Last year Facebook moved it’s mobile messenger out of the Facbeook app to let it stand on alone. A few weeks ago, Facebook overhauled their mobile messaging app to help users streamline their messaging and allow users to incorporate non-Facebook users into the same messaging app. All of those changes weren’t enough to get Facebook Messenger as the most popular mobile messaging app.
The Telegraph reported over the weekend that a recent survey from OnDevice, showed that the fairly new WhatsApp has one the category for mobile messaging app.
OnDevice’s survey showed that with over 4000 respondents in 5 countries, WhatsApp was number one with 44 percent. Facebook Messenger came in at 35%.
The top 5 messaging apps were:
- WhatsApp 44%
- Facebook Messenger 35%
- WeChat 28%
- Twitter 19%
- BBM 17%
OnDevice noted that overall WhatsApp was the big winner however Facebook Messenger dominated here in the United States. Surprisingly, Blackberry Messenger still does very well in countries like Indonesia and South Africa.
Social messaging has surpassed traditional text messaging and email as the preferred way of communication on a smartphone. Social messaging came in at 86% while 73% said they use their phones for voice calls, 75% said they primarily use SMS and 60% said they use their phones for email.
WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said in April that their service had more users than Twitter and carried more messages than Facebook Messenger. According to him, WhatsApp moves over 20 billion messages per day.
The company charges a 99 cent annual subscription fee and does not have any advertising built in, something that has started to turn people away from Facebook, Twitter, and now even Instagram. “We do have a manifesto opposing advertising. We’re so bombarded with ads so much in our daily lives and we felt that smartphones aren’t the place for that. Our phones are so intimately connected to us, to our lives.” Koum told The Telegraph.
Image: DrChaos.
