Most Popular Messaging Apps (2025)

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app with over 3 billion monthly active users worldwide.

The app's popularity has grown significantly in recent years, and it shows no sign of slowing down. As well as being the largest app, it is still the most-downloaded.

Read on for the latest data on instant messaging services, including specific stats related to the most popular apps.

Top Messaging App Statistics 2025 (Editor’s Picks)

• WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app with 3 billion monthly users
• In September 2025, whatsapp.com was visited 2.63 billion times
• Snapchat generates more than double the next-biggest app when it comes to in-app purchases, bringing in $50.83 million per month
• Telegram has 1 billion users, including 81.7% of Russia's online population aged 16+
• WhatsApp is the leading messaging app in 70% of countries

Most Popular Messaging Apps

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app, boasting approximately 3 billion monthly users. That’s over 1.5 billion more than the second most popular messenger app, WeChat (1.41 billion).

Here’s a breakdown of the most popular messaging services by active monthly users:

Rank	Messaging Service	Number of Active Monthly Users
1	WhatsApp	3 billion
2	WeChat	1.41 billion
3	Facebook Messenger	1.01 billion
4	Telegram	1 billion
5	Snapchat	932 million
6	QQ	532 million
7	Discord	200 million+

In terms of monthly downloads, WhatsApp Messenger leads the way again with 35.14 million (as of August 2025). 

Telegram is a close second with over 28 million downloads per month.

Snapchat (26.92 million), Facebook Messenger (17.77 million) and Discord (11.37 million) round out the top 5.

Here’s a breakdown of monthly downloads for messaging apps:

No messaging service generates more revenue per month in in-app purchases than Snapchat ($50.83 million).

In fact, Snapchat earns more than double its nearest competitor (Telegram) via in-app spending. 

Here’s a closer look at the top messaging services for in-app purchase revenue:

Source: Data Reportal, Statista, Statista (2), Statista (3), Snap Inc, Discord, AppMagic, AppMagic (2)

WhatsApp

With around 3 billion unique mobile users, WhatsApp is unrivaled as the top messaging service. 

The app delivers approximately 130 billion messages daily.

The WhatsApp website is one of the world's most popular sites, ranking #10 in August 2025.

According to DataReportal, 54% of internet users aged 16 or older have used WhatsApp at least once within the last month, as of Q1 2025. That's up from 51.4% in Q1 2023. 

And that figure stands above 90% in 14 different countries, including Morocco, Brazil, Mexico, and Spain.

In the US, 30.1% of over-16s are monthly WhatsApp users.

Here's WhatsApp penetration among over-16s by country. We've shown all 14 countries above 90%, plus selected other major nations and the global average:

Male users make up 51.3% of all global WhatsApp users, while female users account for 48.6%.

The US is the leading country in terms of WhatsApp iOS downloads (6.99 million) with over 6x more downloads than any other nation in Q3 2025.

Here are the top 10 nations for WhatsApp iOS downloads:

And here’s a breakdown of WhatsApp downloads via the Google Play Store in the Q3 2025:

WhatsApp Business has seen significant growth over the past few years.

In 2018, 37.87 million people downloaded WhatsApp Business.

As of 2024, that figure had increased over 8x, reaching 311.2 million downloads.

Below is the number of WhatsApp Business downloads by year:

Year	Number of WhatsApp Business Downloads
2018	37.87 million
2019	98.85 million
2020	170.46 million
2021	195.58 million
2022	269.92 million
2023	301.38 million
2024	311.20 million

Sources: Mobilesquared, SQ Magazine, DataReportal, AppMagic, AppMagic (2), AppMagic (3), Semrush, Statista

Facebook Messenger

Despite commanding a significant proportion of the global messaging app market, Facebook Messenger saw downloads drop from 794.61 million in 2015 to 262.53 million in 2023 – a fall of more than 66%.

However, downloads did rally in 2024, rising by nearly 40 million.

These are the figures for Facebook Messenger downloads since 2015:

Year	Facebook Messenger Downloads	Change Over Previous Year
2015	794.61 million	-
2016	743.03 million	↓ 51.58 million
2017	768.37 million	↑ 25.34 million
2018	782.31 million	↑ 13.94 million
2019	702.09 million	↓ 80.22 million
2020	485.63 million	↓ 216.46 million
2021	336.57 million	↓ 149.06 million
2022	329.28 million	↓ 7.29 million
2023	262.53 million	↓ 66.75 million
2024	302.09 million	↑ 39.56 million

Semrush reports that messenger.com was visited 211 million times in September 2025.

In terms of nations, India has the largest total Messenger ad reach, with 111.85 million people.

The Philippines is in second place with 64.1 million, making up around 82% of its adult population.

Here are the top countries by Facebook Messenger ad reach:

*based on ad reach

Sources: AppMagic, Data Reportal, Semrush

Snapchat

The number of daily active users on Snapchat has steadily grown over the last decade.

In fact, since Q1 2014 (46 million) the number of Snapchat users has increased 10x (469 million in Q2 2025).

Here’s a breakdown of active Snapchat users over time:

India has the most total Snapchat users with 213.94 million.

Combined, India (213.94 million) and the US (104.52 million) have more Snapchat users (318.46 million) than the rest of the top 20 countries put together:

Sources: Snap Inc, Data Reportal

Telegram

There are 1 billion Telegram users. That figure accounts for around 12.1% of the world’s population.

Its website, telegram.org, got 441.2 million visitors in September 2025.

Males make up 56.6% of all Telegram users.

Instant messaging app Telegram has seen a steady increase in quarterly downloads over time.

In Q3 2024, Telegram reached a peak of 134.48 million downloads – more than double Q1 2020’s 55.81 million.

Regionally, Asia-Pacific leads the way in Q3 2025, with 30.4 million combined downloads.

Here’s a look at Telegram’s download figures over time:

Telegram has the highest penetration in Russia, where 81.7% of internet users aged 16+ say they have used Telegram within the past month.

Here’s a closer look at Telegram penetration by country among those aged 16+:

Rank	Country	Penetration (internet users aged 16+)
1	Russia	81.7%
2	Nigeria	71.4%
3	Malaysia	64.5%
4	Saudi Arabia	61.9%
5	Indonesia	60.6%
6	Egypt	58.3%
7	India	56.4%
8	Philippines	56.3%
9	Turkey	55.3%
10	Brazil	55.1%
-	Worldwide	33.3%
-	UK	16.3%
-	US	12.9%

Sources: Data Reportal, AppMagic, Semrush

WeChat

As of October 2025, WeChat has 1.41 billion monthly users.

That figure makes up 17% of the global population, rising to 21.6% of the 13+ population.

There are slightly more males (52%) than females (48%) using WeChat.

WeChat added 43 million users in the last year.

Source: Data Reportal

Tencent QQ

The latest data shows that there are approximately 534 million monthly active QQ users in July 2025. That's a year-on-year drop of 19 million users.

That’s 6.5% of the global population or 8.2% if discounting under 13s.

Just under half (47.9%) of QQ users are female.

Source: Data Reportal

Discord

There are around 200 million monthly active users on Discord. In September 2025, its website was visited more than 715 million times.

Discord users make up 2.4% of the world’s population. If only counting those aged 13+, that figure grows to 3.1%.

Males outnumber females by over 2:1 on Discord (66.6% vs 32.8%).

Source: Data Reportal

How Many People Use Messaging Apps?

More than 3 billion people actively use messaging apps. A previous estimate has predicted that the figure could rise to over 3.5 billion in 2025.

Current data is lacking. But with WhatsApp attracting 3 billion users on its own, a figure of 3.5 billion looks conservative. 

Here’s a breakdown of how the number of messaging app users has changed over time:

Year	Messaging App Users	Change Over Previous Year
2016	2.11 billion	-
2017	2.38 billion	+270 million
2018	2.52 billion	+140 million
2019	2.81 billion	+290 million
2020	3.19 billion	+380 million
2021	3.32 billion	+130 million

Sources: Business of Apps, eMarketer

Regional Messaging App Stats

WhatsApp is the leading messaging app in 70 countries out of the 100 examined by SimilarWeb, including:

• Argentina
• Brazil
• Canada
• Germany
• India
• Mexico
• United States
• United Kingdom

Telegram is the most popular messaging app in a handful of nations, including:

• China
• Russia
• Belarus
• Kazakhstan
• Moldova
• Uzbekistan
• Cambodia

Snapchat is the top messaging app in 5 countries.

Line is top in 3 countries.

Signal is the most popular messaging app in the Netherlands and Sweden.

Source: SimilarWeb

Key Takeaways

Messaging apps continue to go from strength to strength with WhatsApp firmly leading the way.

For more related content, take a look at our other blog posts:

• Top Social Media Platforms
• Top 20 New Social Media Networks