WhatsApp Statistics 2023 – Usage, Users, Revenue & More
WhatsApp is amazing, isn’t it? 😀
It is one of the most common apps that you can find everyone using (probably)! The convenience of instant messaging and multi-media sharing facilities of WhatsApp has become one of the most important pillars of its success. Furthermore, the most-loved messaging app by the masses is getting better with each update in terms of functionalities, security, and privacy.
WhatsApp was launched in 2009 with its initial focus on statuses. Later on, the instant messaging features of WhatsApp 2.0 became the reason for its quick growth. The user base of WhatsApp quickly jumped to whopping 2,50,000 active users with the release of its second version. This blog post highlights all the WhatsApp statistics that may fascinate you!
In this post, we’ll cover…
- Important WhatsApp Statistics
- WhatsApp Users by Country 2023
- WhatsApp Monthly Active Users
- Number of WhatsApp Messages Sent Per Day
- WhatsApp U.S. Statistics
- WhatsApp Business Statistics
- WhatsApp Revenue Statistics
- Number of WhatsApp Downloads
- Average Time Spent on WhatsApp
Important WhatsApp Statistics & Facts in a Nutshell
Listed below are some of the important WhatsApp facts and statistics that you must know in 2023:
- Over 2 billion people use WhatsApp every month, making it one of the most popular global mobile messenger apps.
- WhatsApp is the 8th most downloaded android app in the Google Play Store worldwide.
- India has the most monthly active users of WhatsApp, i.e. over 340 million people use WhatsApp in India.
- WhatsApp crosses the milestone of processing 1 billion messages in a single day.
- In 2021, WhatsApp lost millions of its users, a 17% downturn in downloads due to some user terms & privacy-related concerns.
- More than 5 million businesses around the world use WhatsApp business as of 2019.
- WhatsApp is available in more than 180 countries and 60 different languages.
- 73% of WhatsApp users access the app on Android, while 22% of them use iOS.
- WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 at a massive price of $19.6 billion.
- WhatsApp is banned in these 6 countries — China, Iran, Syria, United Arab Emirates, North Korea, and Cuba.
- 69% of internet users use WhatsApp. (Except China)
- 70% of WhatsApp users check the app on a daily basis.
- After its acquisition by Facebook, the user base of WhatsApp rapidly increased from 400 million in 2014 to 1.3 billion in 2017.
You may also love reading our 25+ astounding social media statistics.
WhatsApp Users by Country 2023
We all know that WhatsApp is the most-loved online messaging platform used by the majority of people around the world. But have you ever wondered which country has the most WhatsApp users?
India tops the list of countries by the number of active monthly users of WhatsApp, with over 340 million people using the app, followed by Brazil and the United States. The app is available for use in 180 countries. According to one report in 2020, WhatsApp was the most used app in the United Kingdom.
The table provided below provides deeper insights into the number of WhatsApp users by country around the world.
| Rank | Name of Country | Number of WhatsApp Users (Millions) |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | India | 390.1 |
| #2 | Brazil | 108.4 |
| #3 | United States | 75.1 |
| #4 | Indonesia | 68.8 |
| #5 | Russia | 64.7 |
| #6 | Mexico | 62.3 |
| #7 | Germany | 48.3 |
| #8 | Turkey | 46.2 |
| #9 | Pakistan | 46.2 |
| #10 | Italy | 35.5 |
| #11 | Spain | 33 |
| #12 | UK | 30.1 |
| #13 | Thailand | 28 |
| #14 | South Africa | 27 |
| #15 | Saudi Arabia | 24.2 |
Okay! That were the rankings of the countries by the number of WhatsApp users. But what if we consider the percentage of WhatsApp users? You might be wondering which country has the highest percentage of WhatsApp users. Let’s get more insights into that!
The Global Web Index conducted a survey in 2020 and found that Kenya has the highest penetration of WhatsApp, with over 97% of the participants aged between 16 to 64 years using the app.
The table provided below gives more idea about the country-wise penetration of the app.
| Position | Country | WhatsApp Penetration Rate |
| #1 | Kenya | 97% |
| #2 | South Africa | 96% |
| #3 | Nigeria | 95% |
| #4 | Argentina | 93% |
| #5 | Malaysia | 92% |
| #6 | Colombia | 92% |
| #7 | Brazil | 91% |
| #8 | Turkey | 88% |
| #9 | Spain | 88% |
| #10 | Indonesia | 87% |
The above WhatsApp stats are more than just mere numbers for business owners. The app is being adopted by the masses at a massive rate. If you are a business owner, you can not ignore the power of the huge penetration of WhatsApp and the convenience it provides to customers. Many businesses have already started leveraging WhatsApp for their business in multiple ways.
If you are a Magento 2 store owner, you can use our Magento 2 WhatsApp Notifications extensions to harness the benefits of this popular messaging app for your online store.
WhatsApp Monthly Active Users
We all know that WhatsApp is a widely used messaging platform around the world.
But, have you ever wondered how many people use WhatsApp around the world?
According to the latest figures revealed by Facebook itself, over 2 billion people around the world love using WhatsApp every month!
WhatsApp has grown exponentially since its release. The messenger has witnessed 200x growth in terms of monthly users in less than a decade, from 2010 to 2020.
The table provided below provides detailed insights into the number of monthly active users of WhatsApp since 2010.
| Date | Number of Monthly Active Users |
|---|---|
| October 2010 | 10 million |
| December 2011 | 50 million |
| July 2012 | 75 million |
| October 2012 | 100 million |
| January 2013 | 133 million |
| March 2013 | 166 million |
| April 2013 | 200 million |
| June 2013 | 250 million |
| August 2013 | 300 million |
| October 2013 | 350 million |
| December 2013 | 400 million |
| January 2014 | 430 million |
| February 2014 | 465 million |
| April 2014 | 500 million |
| August 2014 | 600 million |
| January 2015 | 700 million |
| April 2015 | 800 million |
| September 2015 | 900 million |
| February 2016 | 1 billion |
| January 2017 | 1.2 billion |
| July 2017 | 1.3 billion |
| December 2017 | 1.5 billion |
| February 2020 | 2 billion |
| July 2021 | 2 billion |
WhatsApp beats Facebook (1.3 billion), and WeChat (1.2 billion) in terms of monthly active users. During the surge of the Covid-19 pandemic, WhatsApp witnessed a massive spike of 40% increase in its monthly active users in March 2020.
The number of monthly active users of WhatsApp is constantly increasing every year. It has created a new way of communication for businesses around the world to reach their customers.
Number of WhatsApp Messages Sent Per Day
Ever wondered how many messages are sent on WhatsApp per day? Let’s have a glance at WhatsApp chat Statistics.
In 2020, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, revealed that roughly 100 billion messages are exchanged every day on WhatsApp. That is 41,666,667 messages an hour, 694,444 messages a minute, and 11,574 messages a second.
Shocked?! Let’s gather more insights into the historical data of the total number of messages exchanged through WhatsApp per day through the table provided below:
| Month | Number of Daily Messages Exchanged Through WhatsApp |
|---|---|
| Oct 2011 | 1 billion |
| Jan 2015 | 30 billion |
| Feb 2016 | 42 billion |
| Jul 2017 | 55 billion |
| Ma 2018 | 65 billion |
| Oct 2020 | 100 billion |
| Dec 2020 | 100+ billion |
Along with the increase in WhatsApp active users, the number of messages being exchanged on the platform by the users is also skyrocketing. This also shows how WhatsApp has become the go-to app for exchanging instant messages for users worldwide.
WhatsApp U.S. Statistics
Looking for WhatsApp statistics for the United States? Here are a few.
- In 2019, the number of mobile phone users accessing WhatsApp in the United States was 68.1 billion.
- In the United States, 26% of males and 21% of females use WhatsApp.
- Users aged between 26-35 years form a major part which is 27% of the total WhatsApp userbase in the United States.
- 1 out of 2 WhatsApp users in the U.S. accesses the app at least once a day, and 78% of the users access it weekly. More details about the usage frequency of WhatsApp by Americans are provided in the table below:
Usage Frequency Share of Users (U.S.) Daily 50% Weekly 78% Monthly 91%
- Talking about the ethnicity of U.S. WhatsApp users, a major chunk is formed by Hispanic Americans, which is 46%.
- More than half of the total WhatsApp users in the United States are aged less than 30 years, i.e. 54% of the users.
- WhatsApp users in the United States spend less than an average of 7.6 hours per month on WhatsApp.
WhatsApp Business Statistics
WhatsApp Business made a massive debut in 2018, which was aimed at helping small businesses by allowing their customers to easily connect with them through WhatsApp. Currently, most businesses use WhatsApp Link Generator to generate links to stay tuned with their customers using WhatsApp. Provided below are some interesting WhatsApp Business statistics and facts.
- Over 50 million businesses around the world use WhatsApp Business.
- As of 2022, there were over 500 million downloads of the WhatsApp Business app on the Google Play Store.
- WhatsApp Business can boost sales to 127% and the conversation rate to 120%.
- Businesses can improve their customer service by 225% using WhatsApp Business.
- Every day, over 175 million people contact a business using WhatsApp Business.
- Over 40 million customers view business catalogs on WhatsApp every month.
- In 2021, the number of customers and businesses using WhatsApp business was expected to surpass 1.2 billion users.
- The average revenue per user (ARPU) for the WhatsApp Business was estimated to be $0.24 in 2021.
- The Asia-Pacific region has the largest market share for WhatsApp business, with an estimate of over 779 million customer & business accounts to have interacted on WhatsApp Business.
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WhatsApp Revenue Statistics
- The app was initially funded by Koum & his friends (Yahoo employees) with a seed funding of $2,50,000 in October 2009.
- In 2014, WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for $19.6 billion in the form of Facebook shares worth $21.8 billion.
- At the time of acquisition, the share of WhatsApp was equivalent to 10% of Facebook’s market value.
- There is no official data on the revenue generated by WhatsApp; the data on the estimated revenue is provided below:
Year WhatsApp Revenue (Estimate) 2018 1.3 billion 2019 2.3 billion 2020 5.5 billion 2021 8.7 billion
Number of WhatsApp Downloads
WhatsApp has proved to be one of the leading online chatting apps for customers around the world. The number of WhatsApp downloads has been increasing since its release. Here are some intriguing statistics and facts about WhatsApp downloads.
- In 2013, the total number of WhatsApp downloads was 500 million, and this number has exponentially increased since then.
- On the Google Play Store, WhatsApp messenger has over 5 billion total downloads. Also, it is #4 in the top free communication apps on the play store.
- WhatsApp Business has been downloaded over 500 million times by Android users through the Google Play Store.
- As of July 2022, the average rating of WhatsApp messenger on the Google play store was 4.2/5.0 (165 million reviews). The breakdown of Google Play Store ratings is provided in the table below [As of July 2022]:
Rating Number of Ratings 5 Star 118.69 million 4 Star 16.8 million 3 Star 7.96 million 2 Star 4.58 million 1 Star 17.87 million - On the Apple App Store, WhatsApp Messenger has been rated 4.7/5.0 (10.3 million).
- The cumulative download data of WhatsApp from 2013 to 2021 is provided in the table below:
Year Cumulative Downloads (in billions) 2013 0.5 2014 0.8 2015 1.2 2016 2 2017 2.9 2018 3.4 2019 4.3 2020 4.9 2021 5.3
Average Time Spent on WhatsApp
- In 2021, approximately WhatsApp users spent an average of 18.6 hours using the app every month around the world.
- In terms of average time spent on WhatsApp, Brazil tops the list of all the countries, with users spending an average time of 29 hours per month on WhatsApp, followed by Argentina with 28.8 hours per month.
Conclusion
There are plenty of online chatting and messaging apps available in marketing, and the WhatsApp statistics discussed above tell that it beats them all in every aspect. Sometimes, the numbers speak more than the words. The WhatsApp statistics and facts provided above will help you get deeper insights into the leading messaging app.
Sources: Statista1, WhatsApp Blog, GlobalWebIndex, Facebook News1, Facebook News2, Business Insider, Statista2, TechCrunch, Statista3, Statista4, PEW Research, Tyntec, FB Q3 2020 Earnings Call Transcript, Statista5, Statista6, Forbes, Business of Apps, Statista7, AudienceProject, Statista8
