Who Uses WhatsApp The Most?
WhatsApp’s reign as the most popular messaging app not only in the US but also in the world speaks volumes about its reach and potential to help brands grow.
To succeed at using WhatsApp effectively for your business, you need to first understand key WhatsApp statistics and data—including WhatsApp’s usage by country. This requires answering the question: Who uses WhatsApp the most? Or, more specifically: Where is WhatsApp popular?
WhatsApp popularity by country
Recent data from a list ranking WhatsApp’s usage by country shows that the penetration rate of the communication app is the highest in Brazil. At 98.9%, this means that nearly every single person using mobile messaging apps is a WhatsApp user. Incidentally, WhatsApp is also the mobile app with the highest number of active users in Brazil.
Second on the list analyzing WhatsApp’s popularity by country is India. 97.1% of all mobile phone messaging app users there are active on WhatsApp. Even though WhatsApp’s penetration rate in India is slightly lower than Brazil’s, WhatsApp users in India outnumber those in Brazil by a mile. In fact, recent estimates put the number of WhatsApp users in India at 487.5 million, compared to 118.5 million in Brazil. This is because India’s population is much larger than Brazil’s.
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Italy follows closely behind India in third place, with a penetration rate of 97%. WhatsApp is also the app with the highest number of active users there. Argentina and Switzerland round out the top five countries where WhatsApp usage is the highest, with penetration rates of 96% and 95.9%, respectively.
Here are numbers six to 10 on the list ranking WhatsApp usage by country and their respective penetration rates:
- Finland: 95.6%
- Germany: 95.5%
- Austria: 94.4%
- Netherlands: 92.9%
- Spain: 92.2%
Of these 10 countries where WhatsApp is most popular, the majority are located in Europe, two are in South America, and one is in Asia. However, this isn’t to say that WhatsApp’s usage is high across all European countries. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the app’s penetration rate is relatively lower, at 71.3%. Across the Channel, this falls to 48%, which means that fewer than one in two mobile phone messaging app users in France are active WhatsApp users. In Sweden, just one in three (33.5%) mobile phone messaging app users use WhatsApp.