WhatsApp User Statistics 2024: How Many People Use WhatsApp?
Written by Brian Dean
WhatsApp was officially launched in November 2009 as a chat app service, initially just for iOS.
In August 2010, WhatsApp released an app for Android users. It took 4 years for the messenger app to hit a milestone of 200 million monthly active users.
With growing popularity, Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion, more than 12 times higher than WhatsApp’s valuation from the previous year.
Today, WhatsApp is reported to have more than 2 billion monthly active users globally and is ranked as the most popular mobile messenger app in the world.
Read on to see all of the key WhatsApp statistics you need to know in 2024.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what we’ll cover:
- Key Stats About WhatsApp (Top Picks)
- WhatsApp Monthly Active Users
- Number of WhatsApp Messages Sent Globally per Day
- Time Spent With WhatsApp
- WhatsApp Usage Frequency in the US
- WhatsApp Reach by Age Group in the US
- WhatsApp Gender Demographics
- Top 10 WhatsApp Countries Ranked by Largest Audiences
- WhatsApp Number of Downloads
- WhatsApp Application Ratings
- WhatsApp Business Number of Downloads
- WhatsApp Business Monthly Active Users
Key Stats About WhatsApp (Top Picks)
- WhatsApp has 2 billion active users worldwide.
- WhatsApp is ranked as the most used mobile messenger app in the world.
- More than 100 billion messages are sent each day on WhatsApp.
- The average WhatsApp user on Android spends 33.5 minutes per day on the app.
- India has the most WhatsApp monthly active users (487.5 million).
WhatsApp Monthly Active Users
According to the latest Facebook figures, WhatsApp has more than 2 billion users.
WhatsApp added 1 billion new users in the past 4 years alone (2016-2020).
During the 6 years that WhatsApp has operated as a Facebook subsidiary, the messenger’s monthly active user base has increased by 365%, from 465 million in February 2014.
Here’s the table of WhatsApp user growth 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 |
Sources: Yahoo, Statista, Facebook
Number of WhatsApp Messages Sent Globally per Day
According to a December 2020 tweet from Will Cathcart (Head of WhatsApp), more than 100 billion messages are sent each day on WhatsApp.
In fact, the number of messages sent via WhatsApp has increased by 53.84% from 65 billion in 2018.
We’ve charted the growth of the number of messages sent daily on WhatsApp since 2011:
Date | Number of messages sent per day on WhatsApp |
---|---|
October 2011 | 1 billion |
January 2015 | 30 billion |
February 2016 | 42 billion |
July 2017 | 55 billion |
May 2018 | 65 billion |
October 2020 | 100 billion |
December 2020 | 100+ billion |
Sources: Statista, VentureBeat, Fortune, X (Twitter)
Time Spent With WhatsApp
According to data.ai intelligence, WhatsApp users worldwide on the Android platform spent 16 hours 45 minutes per month or 33.5 minutes per day on the app between 1 April and 30 June 2023.
That’s a slight decline from 17 hours 18 minutes per month or 34.6 minutes per day reported based on usage throughout 2022.
Time spent using WhatsApp among Android users in the US was significantly below the global average – 7 hours 24 minutes per month or 14.8 minutes per day in 2022.
Sources: DataReportal, Statista
WhatsApp Usage Frequency in the US
Based on AudienceProject findings, 50% of American WhatsApp users access the messenger service daily. An additional 28% use WhatsApp at least once a week, which brings the total to 78% of American WhatsApp users accessing the app weekly.
Here’s the breakdown of WhatsApp usage among American users as of Q3 2020:
Frequency usage | Share of users |
---|---|
Daily | 50% |
Weekly | 78% |
Monthly | 91% |
Source: AudienceProject
WhatsApp Reach by Age Group in the US
WhatsApp is most popular among Americans aged between 18-34, with 31% of them having a WhatsApp account as of May 2022.
Here’s the complete breakdown by age group of the registered WhatsApp reach in the US:
Age group | WhatsApp usage among US internet users |
---|---|
18-34 years | 31% |
35-44 years | 27% |
45-64 years | 20% |
65+ years | 11% |
Total | 23% |
Source: Statista
WhatsApp Gender Demographics
As of Q2 2023, the WhatsApp worldwide user base consisted of 47.1% female users. Another 52.8% were male.
Source: Statista
Top 10 WhatsApp Countries Ranked by Largest Audiences
According to eMarketer data, India has more WhatsApp users than any other country, with 487.5 million monthly active users as of June 2021.
The combined user base located in the top 3 WhatsApp countries exceeds half a billion, with 690.8 million monthly active users based in India, Brazil, and Indonesia.
Here’s the table of the ten countries where WhatsApp is the most popular, ranked by the number of monthly users:
Country | Number of WhatsApp Users |
---|---|
India | 487.5 million |
Brazil | 118.5 million |
Indonesia | 84.8 million |
United States | 79.6 million |
Russia | 67 million |
Mexico | 60 million |
Germany | 49.2 million |
Italy | 36.9 million |
Spain | 32.2 million |
Argentina | 26.5 million |
Source: eMarketer
WhatsApp Number of Downloads
According to AppFigures data, WhatsApp was downloaded 36 million times in October 2023 alone.
Most downloads came from Google Play (with 26 million installs), while another 10 million downloads came from the App Store.
To put it in perspective, that’s well below the peak of 63 million downloads in January 2020 but above 32 million downloads in September 2023.
Appfigures analysis notes that WhatsApp downloads have been on a multi-year decline since 2020 but show positive growth signals in 2023.
Worldwide, WhatsApp was the 4th most downloaded app in October 2023 (behind TikTok, Facebook, Instagram).
Sources: Appfigures 1, Appfigures 2, Appfigures 3
WhatsApp Application Ratings
The WhatsApp application has over 183.8 million ratings on the Android platform, with an average score of 4.2.
Here’s the full rating breakdown for WhatsApp on Android:
Rating | Number of Ratings |
---|---|
1 star | 23,506,790 |
2 star | 8,092,562 |
3 star | 11,671,578 |
4 star | 18,515,481 |
5 star | 122,039,266 |
On iOS, the WhatsApp mobile application has over 12.8 million ratings, with an average score of 4.7.
Here’s the full rating breakdown for WhatsApp on iOS:
Rating | Number of Ratings |
---|---|
1 star | 400,961 |
2 star | 164,394 |
3 star | 399,185 |
4 star | 1,059,763 |
5 star | 10,802,551 |
Sources: Sensor Tower 1, Sensor Tower 2
WhatsApp Business Number of Downloads
WhatsApp has a dedicated app for managing business profiles and staying in touch with customers.
Based on Appfigures estimates, WhatsApp Business was downloaded 21 million times across Google Play & iOS App Store in October 2023. The vast majority, 18 million downloads, came from Android users, while the remaining 3 million installs came from iOS users.
Source: Appfigures
WhatsApp Business Monthly Active Users
WhatsApp Business reached 200 million monthly active users in June 2023, a 4x increase from 50 million reported in July 2020.
Source: Statista
Conclusion
That’s my list of WhatsApp statistics for 2024. The messenger app was already quite popular as an independent business and has grown significantly under Facebook, becoming the most popular mobile messaging app worldwide.
Hopefully, you found the listed facts and figures interesting. The data was collected from multiple sources to bring you the most important and recent stats in one place.
Now I’d like to hear from you:
Do you think WhatsApp will keep its top status despite privacy concerns? Have you got any questions about the information in this stats roundup?
Whatever it is, please feel free to leave a comment below.