Messaging Apps Have Taken Over | Usage & Growth Statistics

Did you know that people who have smartphones have a 3 in 4 chance of installing one or more messaging apps? In the current era of hyper-communication, messaging apps have become a vital part of daily life. They are among the conventional ways of communicating, both for individuals and businesses.

With billions of monthly users, messaging apps offer endless opportunities and massive potential for growth for companies around the globe.

What are Messaging Apps?

Put simply, they are platforms that allow instant messaging. Messaging apps have standard features such as: free install, chatting, groups, photo sharing, and the ability to make voice and video calls. Facebook’s Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, and Viber are prominent messaging apps today.

Why Texting has Become so Popular

Did you know that approximately 42 million messages are sent each minute? In 2018 alone, people spent 685 billion hours on social and messaging apps. It is undisputed that messaging is the number one digital activity people engage in.

Texting has surpassed phone calls as the leading form of communication, especially among Millennials. Here are several reasons why texting has become more popular than ever before.

Texting is low cost or even free.
Quick response times – 90% of text messages are opened in three minutes.
You can engage in multiple conversations at once.
Text messages are meaningful, just like phone calls.
Most messaging apps now enable a richer media experience than traditional texting and integrate this with a lot of social sharing functionality that increases their appeal.
Texting has multigenerational appeal. It’s not just for the younger generations.

Evolution of Popular Messaging Apps

The notion of instant messaging became mainstream in the 1990s, enabling people to connect in real-time. Back then, messaging was a tool rather than a platform. It was elementary with no video, images, web links, rich text, and group messaging.

Over the years, advancement in technology has led to the growth of messaging apps. These apps have revolutionized how people communicate, with billions of people using more than one app. The current messaging experience is seamless and intuitive. People have access to features, such video, photos, e-commerce, gaming, and the old messaging, all in one platform.

The top three messaging apps by the number of users are WhatsApp – 2 billion users, Facebook Messenger – 1.3 billion users, and WeChat at 1.12 billion users. Messenger is the top messaging app in the US. In 2017, approximately 260 million new conversations were taking place each day on the app. In total, 7 billion conversations were occurring daily.

Facebook Messenger dates back to 2011 when it was introduced as an addition to the Facebook app to make messaging easier on Facebook. In 2015, Facebook Messenger for Businesses was launched to allow enterprises to communicate with customers. Later, Facebook introduced the Bot Platform for users to message and interact with companies.

As technology advances, so do the messaging apps. Currently, Facebook intends to integrate the top messaging apps –WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger to allow users to communicate across the platforms seamlessly.

A unified technology infrastructure for these three hugely popular messaging holds enormous potential for businesses that automate one to one conversations with their customers on these platforms.

Stats Usage in 2020 and Beyond

36% of people who use messaging apps have at least two messaging apps.
Messaging apps have overtaken social media platforms in the number of active monthly users by 20%.
Messenger seconds WhatsApp as the most downloaded app globally.
WhatsApp for Business has 5 million users. Learn more about WhatsApp for business here.
Forty million businesses are active on Messenger.
By 2021, WeChat will have 674 million monthly users.
In the US, Messenger is the most popular messaging app, with 107.87 million users.
Businesses and users exchange 20 billion messages on Messenger monthly.
By 2020, messaging apps will have an average revenue of around $15 per user.
66% of consumers are more confident about making a purchase when a company is active in messaging apps.

What Does This Mean for Marketers?

Although many marketers invest in social media marketing, they only target major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. They miss a big part of social media – messaging apps. In fact, research shows that more people use messaging apps than social media platforms.

Messaging apps offer enormous opportunities for marketers. They can be great additions to your marketing plan. You can use messenger chatbots to communicate with customers and prospects.

Below are various ways marketers benefit from messaging app bots:

Expanded reach to the billions of people using these apps
Promoting products and services using ads
Personalized brand experience on a one to one customer basis
Guiding shoppers and responding to questions in real-time
Adapting to consumer needs and preferences on the fly
Increased customer engagement
Building valuable long-term customer relationships through persistent communication
Leveraging digital payments through messaging apps
Attaining a competitive advantage

How Bots Built with Spectrm can Increase Sales by Driving Traffic and Building Relationships at Scale

When many people hear the term ‘messenger bot,’ they think about a chatbot that appears on a company’s homepage ready to answer any questions. Such chatbots are reactive and require customers to come to you. They are not the best chatbots for forward-looking businesses.

Instead, companies should invest in conversational marketing chatbots powered by Spectrm that integrate with Facebook Messenger to meet prospects where they are.

Different Facebook Messenger bot flows can be triggered when a user clicks an ad, which can guide shopping experiences. With Spectrm, brands can optimize their conversational marketing by capitalizing on performance analytics and personalizing their drip campaigns. Also, brands get other gains such as:

Reach more customers at a low CPC and higher ROI. Happy Socks reported a 3.3x return on ad spend and 20% revenue lift in five weeks using conversational marketing powered by Spectrm.
Offer customers personalized experiences that beat ad fatigue.
Decrease acquisition cost by up to nine times.
Attain five times more conversions. Spectrm customer, Telekom, achieved a 60% conversion completion rate, 35% CTR to cart landing page, and 9x contract conversion lift.

Bottom Line

The last few years have seen the tremendous growth of messaging apps. From WhatsApp to Messenger and WeChat, individuals are spending millions of hours on these apps. This represents a huge opportunity for marketers to engage in messenger marketing and connect with customers and prospects using social messaging bots.

Spectrm can help your business leverage messaging apps to increase sales with their chatbot technology. Book a demo with us today.