WhatsApp, a name synonymous with instant messaging, has journeyed from a simple status update application to the world’s most popular messaging service. Launched in 2009 by former Yahoo employees Brian Acton and Jan Koum, WhatsApp revolutionized communication with its user-friendly platform that integrated seamlessly with users’ phone numbers.
Initially exclusive to iOS, the app saw a significant turning point in 2010 with its launch on Android, rapidly growing to 250,000 users. The platform’s user base exploded to 200 million by 2013, drawing Facebook’s attention, which acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.
This acquisition marked one of the largest in tech history and highlighted WhatsApp’s potential threat to existing communication giants. Despite controversies over data sharing with its parent company, WhatsApp continued to innovate, introducing features like voice and video calls, WhatsApp Business, WhatsApp API and even integrating payment systems in major markets like India and Brazil.
This article dives deep into the latest 2024 statistics for WhatsApp that illustrate WhatsApp’s pivotal role in shaping global communication trends. Stay tuned as we explore the data that underscores WhatsApp’s enduring popularity and strategic evolution in the digital age.
Table of Contents
WhatsApp General Statistics
WhatsApp is the most widely used messaging platform across the world. In fact, it is the second most popular app in the entire world after Facebook. Let us take a look at some intriguing facts about the messaging app we all know and love.
- WhatsApp is the most used messaging app of all time with a reported unique monthly active users of 3 billion people (source – Statista)
- India is the country with the largest number of WhatsApp users with approximately 535.8 million people.
- WhatsApp is the second most downloaded app on Google Play Store.
- WhatsApp is the 8th most downloaded app worldwide.
- WhatsApp has only 2500 employees serving billions of users.
- Over 38% of the entire world uses WhatsApp and 69% of internet users use WhatsApp (excluding China).
- Facebook acquired WhatsApp for an astounding $19.6 billion worth of cash and stocks. WhatsApp has been Facebook’s largest acquisition ever and one of the largest acquisitions in tech history.
- In October 2011, one billion messages were being sent on WhatsApp every single day.
- In February 2020 WhatsApp reached the milestone of 2 billion users.
WhatsApp Users by Country
WhatsApp is available for download in over 180 countries of the world. WhatsApp has truly expanded its reach in the past few years making it available to people across the world. However, most of WhatsApp’s user base is from the few countries that use WhatsApp the most.
The following list has the top ten countries with the most number of WhatsApp users:
| Country | Number of Users |
| India | 535.8 million |
| Brazil | 139.3 million |
| USA | 91.3 million |
| Indonesia | 86.9 millionZ |
| Mexico | 69.7 million |
| Russia | 66.7 million |
| Pakistan | 52.3 million |
| Germany | 51.9 million |
| Philippines | 51.2 million |
| Nigeria | 51 million |
Source: World Population Review
Fastest Growing Markets for WhatsApp
As more and more countries take interest in WhatsApp its user base continues to grow with great momentum. According to recent data the fastest-growing markets for WhatsApp are:
| Country | Penetration Rate |
| Nigeria | 95.1% |
| South Africa | 93.9% |
| Brazil | 93.4% |
| Mexico | 92.2% |
| Spain | 91% |
| Indonesia | 90.9% |
| Italy | 90.3% |
| Portugal | 90.3% |
| Romania | 88.2% |
| Kenya | 86.8% |
Source: Statista
Monthly Active Users
WhatsApp since its launch in 2009 has shown consistent growth throughout the years up until today. One might say WhatsApp has experienced a rapid increase in the number of users in the past few years. WhatsApp added a billion users in the years 2016-2020 and another billion from 2020-2024. Let us take a look at what the data tells us:
| Date | Number of 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 |
| September 2021 | 2.16 billion |
| April 2022 | 2.24 billion |
| July 2023 | 2.7 billion |
| July 2024 | 2.9581 billion |
Number of WhatsApp Messages Sent Per Day
As of 2023, WhatsApp handles the exchange of over 140 billion messages per day. Woah! That’s a huge number. This means that,
- 1.6 million messages are sent every second
- 97 million messages are sent every minute and
- 5.833 billion messages are sent every hour
Here is some additional data:
| Date | Number of Messages Exchanged |
| October 2011 | 1 billion |
| January 2015 | 30 billion |
| February 2016 | 42 billion |
| July 2017 | 55 billion |
| March 2018 | 65 billion |
| October 2020 | 100 billion |
| July 2023 | 140 billion |
Source: WhatsApp blog, Statista, Venturebeat
User Gender Statistics
Apparently, the gender distribution of WhatsApp is not a 50/50 ratio. More men use WhatsApp when compared to women. To be exact, the WhatsApp gender demographic is about 53.9% male and 47.1% female.
Source: Statista
WhatsApp Revenue and Valuation
WhatsApp has always been a profitable company since the beginning. Although WhatsApp Messenger is completely free to use WhatsApp still manages to make sustained profits. WhatsApp makes the majority of its revenue from WhatsApp Business API.
During its initial days, WhatsApp had a seed funding of merely $250,000 put together by Brian Acton, Jan Koum and some of their colleagues at Yahoo.
Later on, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19.6 billion in February 2014. WhatsApp’s ownership accounted for about 10% of Facebook’s value at the time of acquisition.
According to a few reports an individual WhatsApp user is worth about $44 dollars to the company. Hence keeping the current number of individual users, WhatsApp’s valuation should be 118.8 billion as of 2023.
Let us dive into how much revenue WhatsApp has collected in the last few years:
| Year | Revenue ($mm) |
| 2018 | 443 |
| 2019 | 507 |
| 2020 | 632 |
| 2021 | 790 |
| 2022 | 906 |
| 2023 | 1279 |
Source: Business of apps
Download Statistics
WhatsApp has been one of the best chatting apps to connect with friends and family since its launch in 2009. The number of WhatsApp downloads has seen significant and relentless growth across app marketplaces such as the App Store and Google Play Store. Here is some captivating data regarding WhatsApp downloads:
| Year | Number of Downloads ($bn) |
| 2013 | 0.5 |
| 2014 | 0.8 |
| 2015 | 1.2 |
| 2016 | 2 |
| 2017 | 2.9 |
| 2018 | 3.4 |
| 2019 | 4.1 |
| 2020 | 4.7 |
| 2021 | 5 |
| 2022 | 5.4 |
| 2023 | 5.8 |
Source: Meetanshi, Business of Apps.
Ratings
WhatsApp has been given a cumulative rating of 4.1 out of 5.0 by Android users who downloaded the app via Google Play Store. (179 million reviews)
In the case of iOS, users have given WhatsApp a cumulative rating of 2.7 out of 5.0 on the App Store. (4.6 million reviews).
Countries in which WhatsApp is Restricted or Banned
- WhatsApp is banned in four countries including China, Syria, North Korea and Iran.
- Other countries such as Qatar, UAE, Oman and Jordan restrict certain features such as voice calls due to strict VoIP regulations.
Age Group Statistics
WhatsApp seems to be fairly popular among all age groups successfully catering to the needs of all people from Boomers and Baby boomers to millennials and Gen Z. The age distribution of WhatsApp users is as follows:
| Age Group | Share of Users |
| 15-25 | 19% |
| 26-35 | 27% |
| 36-45 | 20% |
| 46-55 | 17% |
| 56+ | 13% |
Source: Verloop.io, Blogging wizard.
WhatsApp Group Statistics
- WhatsApp groups can have up to 1024 members.
- A WhatsApp broadcast list can have up to 256 members
- There is no limitation when it comes to the number of broadcast lists one can create.
- WhatsApp API allows you to send messages simultaneously to 1 million unique users.
Average Time Spent on WhatsApp
According to research reports, WhatsApp users spend an average of 33.5 minutes per day on WhatsApp amounting to around 17 hours in a month.
About 50% of WhatsApp users access the app every single day with over 91% doing it at least once a month.
The countries that spend the most amount of time on WhatsApp are;
| Country | Time Spent (Hours per month) |
| Brazil | 29 |
| Indonesia | 29 |
| Argentina | 28 |
| India | 21 |
| USA | 7.6 |
| Australia | 6 |
WhatsApp Web Statistics
- WhatsApp Web allows users to directly access WhatsApp from their browsers without the need to actually download the app. This makes it easier for people to access WhatsApp from their PCs.
- WhatsApp Web generates around 2.5 billion monthly unique visits.
- WhatsApp web has witnessed 8.79 billion visits from April to June 2023.
- The average time a user spends on WhatsApp Web is around 21 minutes and 56 seconds.
- WhatsApp Web gets most of its social media traffic from YouTube (55.54%)
- Are you aware that WhatsApp Web only works from the Google Chrome browser on a desktop or laptop? It generally does not work any other way, most likely not even on Google Chrome mobile.
- WhatsApp Web has a website authority of 100. One of the highest of any website.
- WhatsApp web ranks #20 in Google search results.
Source: Cooby
WhatsApp Business Statistics
The WhatsApp Business app was launched in the month of January in the year 2018 with the aim of connecting small businesses to customers via WhatsApp. This new app helped companies manage business profiles and interact with customers better. WhatsApp Business gives entrepreneurs access to dedicated business profiles with smart messaging tools, detailed messaging analytics and verified business accounts to let people know that they are talking to a business. Here are some key fascinating facts about WhatsApp Business:
- Today over 50 million businesses across the planet leverage the power of WhatsApp Business.
- Data shows that people are more likely to view a WhatsApp message over an email. WhatsApp messages have a staggering open rate of 98% making it super attractive for business owners.
- Businesses are capable of boosting sales by an enormous 127% with the help of WhatsApp Business.
- Business catalogs on WhatsApp are viewed by customers 40 million times each month.
- WhatsApp Business has been downloaded 33 million times from the Google Play Store.
- Businesses can improve their customer service by 225% using WhatsApp Business.
- 175 million people interact with a business through WhatsApp each and every day.
- As of July 2023, WhatsApp Business had over 200 million monthly active users.
- Number of WhatsApp Business downloads from 2018 to 2023:
| Year | Number of Downloads (in millions) |
| 2018 | 37.87 |
| 2019 | 98.85 |
| 2020 | 170.46 |
| 2021 | 200.34 |
| 2022 | 277.44 |
| 2023 | 316.16 |
WhatsApp API Statistics
WhatsApp Business API also known as WhatsApp Cloud API is a software tool designed to help businesses interact with customers at scale. Unlike the WhatsApp Business app which is free, WhatsApp API comes with a cost. WhatsApp API provides various extremely useful tools to businesses such as chatbots, bulk and automated messaging, message templates and detailed analytics reports that can be leveraged to increase revenue and profits.
Here are some key facts on WhatsApp Business API:
- WhatsApp Business API was launched in 2018
- By the end of 2019, there were only around 1000 businesses using WhatsApp API.
- By the end of 2024, The number of Businesses using WhatsApp API is projected to be around 55000.
Source: MEF
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Conclusion
WhatsApp is a platform that has tremendously revolutionized the social media scene and has tangibly become integrated into our day-to-day lives. Since its launch in 2009, WhatsApp has grown enormously and morphed into the chatting app we all know and love. WhatsApp is the way many of us connect with our friends, family and colleagues.
Looking ahead WhatsApp is here to stay and appears to have a bright and promising future. WhatsApp has evolved to incorporate so many new features such as voice and video calls and even payment systems which are currently only available in India and Brazil. We can be assured that we will witness even more countries added to the list in the forthcoming years. With that said WhatsApp is likely to lead the messaging world being the top choice for people as it is constantly adapted to users’ needs by the addition of new features.
