Messaging App Statistics: The Most Popular Messaging Platforms in 2023 & Beyond

October 25, 2022

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

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This post was originally published on 9 June 2020 and updated on 25 October 2022 and 20 January 2023.

Messaging app statistics in 2023 show that the use of online messaging apps is still on the rise. WhatsApp and Messenger are still the most popular messaging platforms. 📈

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 like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp Business and Instagram Messenger offer endless opportunities and massive potential for growth for companies around the globe.

What are Messaging Apps
Messaging App Statistics in 2023
WhatsApp Business Statistics in 2023
Why Texting has Become so Popular
Evolution of Popular Messaging Apps
What Does This Mean for Marketers?
How Bots Built With Spectrm Increase Sales via Messaging
Bottom Line

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.

Messaging App Statistics in 2023 and Beyond

What are the most popular messaging platforms in 2023?

The top three messaging apps by the number of users are WhatsApp – 2 billion users, WeChat at 1.2 billion users, while Facebook Messenger has 1 billion users. Messenger is the top messaging app in the US. In 2021, there were 135.9 million Facebook Messenger users in the USA, up from 133 million in 2020. In 2022, this number is expected to increase to 138.1 million.

According to our social conversational commerce report, 60% of respondents prefer messaging over email or phone calls.
There are 2.52 billion people using messaging apps on mobile. This number is expected to reach 3 billion in 2022.
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 has more than 2 billion users.
WhatsApp Business’ user base grew tenfold from 2019. The business app claims to have more than 50 million users each month. Learn more about WhatsApp for business here.
40 million businesses are active on Messenger.
In the US, Messenger is the most popular messaging app, with 135.9 million users.
Businesses and users exchange 20 billion messages on Messenger monthly.
66% of consumers are more confident about making a purchase when a company is active in messaging apps.

WhatsApp Business Statistics in 2023

With 2 billion users, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app.

WhatsApp Business offers a big opportunity to directly reach your audience, convert customers and grow lifetime value.

That’s why we ran a survey of 2700 people around the world to find out how messaging with a brand through WhatsApp impacts brand affinity, purchase choices, and customer experience.

Here are the top WhatsApp Business statistics based on our findings:

57% of customers regularly communicate with a brand on WhatsApp. Additionally, half of respondents have messaged with a brand between one and ten times.
70% say messaging has positively impacted their perception of the company. 66% also have gone on to make a purchase after communicating with a brand on WhatsApp.
Customers primarily message with product and service questions. They also message for brand related questions, customer service complaints, and shipping or delivery questions.
“It’s fast” and “It’s convenient” are the top reasons why respondents message. Ways brands can improve the messaging experience include faster response time and better answers.
69% of respondents are more likely to buy from a brand if there’s a WhatsApp option available. Hence, brands can increase customer loyalty and differentiate themselves from the competition by giving customers the option to message them on WhatsApp.
64% are likely to spend more if they can communicate on WhatsApp. Brands can also increase their revenue and customer lifetime value by giving the option of messaging on WhatsApp.
Slow response rate was the number one reason for a negative experience. Additionally, 73% said their negative experience led them to not buy from the company, and 56% have abandoned a purchase because the company was too slow to respond to their inquiry.

Read the full ungated WhatsApp Brand Messaging Report!

Why Texting has Become so Popular

Did you know that approximately 41 million messages are sent each minute? In 2022, over 3 billion people are predicted to use 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.

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.

Messaging App Statistics Marketers Must Know

With billions of monthly users, messaging apps offer endless opportunities and massive marketing potential and growth for companies around the globe. Here are key marketing insights into the most popular messaging apps in today’s world.

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.

State of Social Conversational Commerce Report

Conversational commerce on social is quickly becoming a major strategic marketing investment for brands. Read the full ungated report from our conversational commerce survey of 1000 consumers from around the world.