It's definitely not the world's messaging market. For instance in Japan and many places in SEA, Line is the standard messenger - one many people probably haven't even heard of. Though it does have a nice play on words - are you on Line?
It’s not uncommon. Orkut back in the day was wildly popular in Latin America and India. WhatsApp is the same. I think users in NA have a lot of high quality options as against those in Asia and LatAm who don’t have much reliable options other than ones developed in NA.
You can get an android phone for about one tenth of what a new iPhone costs. That’s why android dominates lower income markets. Apple decided they just don’t want to be there.
Yeah, huge in Latin America in the sense that a lot (most?) business only have a number that they use with Whatsapp (you can't call or even text them). Is it the same in Europe? Since I am from Latin America I never know if people from other continents use Whatsapp as much as we do, and if when I ask them to use Whatsapp I am imposing a new app or it's what they regularly use.
No. Here in Germany WhatsApp is not even that widespread for businesses. But WA is very big here for personal communication, though Signal comes in second (at least amongst older people, and amongst my circle)
I think Europe is not homogenous enough for this, but in the Netherlands at least, there are plenty of companies that you can't call, email or text, but they'll have some other options: a chatbot, a web form, maybe a Twitter account, and sometimes via WhatsApp indeed.
I’m not sure that’s true. I’m fairly certain UK, France, AU, Canada WhatsApp is not vastly more popular than the blue bubble alternative. At least I believe this was the case a few years ago, based on data I’d seen.
> Blue bubble isn't really a thing ever mentioned in France either, not enough iPhone market share.
Nobody uses iMessage. People with iPhone use WhatsApp too.
The user experience of iMessage used to be subpar and now everyone has WhatsApp installed anyway, the feature set is the same and it works on all phone brands so nobody feels like switching.
Same in the UK. The fact that iMessage only works for iOS devices means it's a complete non-starter. What's the point in using a messaging app if you can't add all your contacts to a group? And if you're using a different app for group chats for this reason, then why not use it for 1-1 messaging, too?
I guess that it’s the iPhone’s messenger app? I heard that in that app, fellow iOS users have blue bubble messages and Android / other users have green bubble messages, and all the teens in the US /maybe Canada think it’s lame if you don’t have blue bubbles.
Oh. I remember hearing about that about 15y ago, didn't realise it was still a thing. I suppose because I haven't heard of anyone using iMessage for almost as long!
you probably mean outside of the USA, it's huge in Europe/UK
(which doesn't contradict your main point)