Messaging app statistics 2026: WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram, Instagram

By the companies’ own counts, WhatsApp is the world’s largest messaging app: more than 3 billion people use it, and Meta said in January 2026 that more than 2 billion use it every day. Among apps built mainly for messaging, the next largest are Weixin and WeChat, with 1.439 billion combined monthly users in June 2026, and Telegram, which reported more than 1 billion monthly users in March 2025. Apple doesn’t publish an iMessage user count. In the US, 33% of adults use WhatsApp, according to Pew Research Center’s 2026 survey.

Below is a summary table you can quote, then the detail for each app: what the number measures, who reported it and when. Every figure links to its primary source, which is usually the company itself, so read company numbers as claims made to investors or the public, not independent audits. At the end is a box of numbers that don’t exist, starting with iMessage.

Messaging app statistics at a glance

Last checked 20 October 2026. Platform figures change quarterly (Meta and Tencent report every quarter), so quote the date with the number.

Statistic	Figure	Source	Date
People who use WhatsApp	More than 3 billion, in over 180 countries	WhatsApp	Checked 20 October 2026
WhatsApp daily users	More than 2 billion	Meta earnings call	28 January 2026
WhatsApp monthly users in the US	More than 100 million	Meta earnings call	29 January 2025
US adults who use WhatsApp	33% (23% in 2021)	Pew Research Center (5,511 US adults)	January–June 2026, published 19 October 2026
Internet users aged 16+ who used WhatsApp in the past month	54.4% (69.8% outside China and Russia)	GWI data via DataReportal	Q4 2025 data, published April 2026
WhatsApp’s busiest moment	30 million messages sent per second	Meta earnings call	World Cup Final, July 2026
Instagram monthly users	3 billion	Meta earnings call	29 October 2025
Instagram daily users	2 billion	Meta earnings call	29 July 2026
US adults who use Instagram	51% (79% of 18- to 29-year-olds)	Pew Research Center	January–June 2026
Internet users aged 16+ who used Messenger in the past month	36.9% (41.0% in Q4 2023)	GWI data via DataReportal	Q4 2025 data, published April 2026
Telegram monthly users	“Significantly over” 1 billion	Pavel Durov (Telegram’s founder)	19 March 2025
Weixin and WeChat combined monthly users	1.439 billion	Tencent	30 June 2026, published 12 August 2026
iMessage users	Not published	No Apple figure found	Checked 20 October 2026
Active Apple devices	More than 2.5 billion	Apple	29 January 2026
US adults who use Snapchat	26% (56% of 18- to 29-year-olds)	Pew Research Center	January–June 2026
Signal users	No official count found; 100M+ Android downloads	Google Play	Checked 20 October 2026
People using at least one Meta app daily	3.60 billion	Meta	June 2026 average, published 29 July 2026
RCS messages sent per day in the US	More than 1 billion	Google	May 2025
SMS and MMS messages exchanged in the US	Nearly 2.2 trillion	CTIA	2024 data, published September 2025

Which messaging app has the most users?

WhatsApp, on every count the companies publish. But the companies don’t count the same thing, so treat the ranking as rough.

App	Latest company figure	What it counts	Date
WhatsApp	More than 3 billion	“People” who use it (no period stated)	Website, checked 20 October 2026
Instagram	3 billion	Monthly actives	29 October 2025
Weixin and WeChat	1.439 billion	Combined monthly active users	30 June 2026
Telegram	“Significantly over” 1 billion	Monthly active users	19 March 2025
iMessage	No Apple figure found since 2012 (140 million then)	No current figure	Checked 20 October 2026
Messenger	Not in the 2024–2026 earnings calls we read	No figure	Checked 20 October 2026
Signal	No official count found	No figure	Checked 20 October 2026

Instagram is a social app with direct messages rather than a messaging app, but it belongs here because so much private chat happens in its DMs. Telegram’s founder called it the world’s second most popular messaging app in March 2025, explicitly leaving out WeChat because it is specific to China (Durov). On the numbers above, that ranking holds only with that exclusion.

WhatsApp statistics

WhatsApp’s own About page says more than 3 billion people in over 180 countries use it (WhatsApp, checked 20 October 2026). Here’s the rest of what’s published:

• Daily use: Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on 28 January 2026 that Facebook and WhatsApp each ended 2025 with more than 2 billion daily actives (transcript).
• Growth: WhatsApp announced it had passed 2 billion users on 12 February 2020 (WhatsApp blog). That’s why older pages still say 2 billion.
• United States: Zuckerberg said on 31 July 2024 that WhatsApp had more than 100 million monthly actives in the US (transcript). He repeated the figure on 29 January 2025, saying he expected WhatsApp to keep gaining share on its way to becoming the leading messaging platform in the US, as it is in much of the world (transcript). In April 2026 he described strong WhatsApp momentum, including in the US, without a new number (transcript).
• Record volume: WhatsApp set an all-time messaging record during the World Cup Final, peaking at 30 million messages sent per second (Zuckerberg, 29 July 2026; transcript).
• Restrictions: Meta said in April 2026 that the number of people using its apps daily dipped slightly in the first quarter because of internet disruptions in Iran and a restriction on access to WhatsApp in Russia (transcript).
• Business messaging: paid messaging within WhatsApp crossed a $2 billion annual run-rate in the fourth quarter of 2025 (transcript).

Who uses WhatsApp in the US

Pew’s 2026 survey (5,511 US adults, 30 January to 18 June 2026, margin of error ±1.8 points; Pew, published 19 October 2026) found that 33% of US adults use WhatsApp. Unlike Instagram or Snapchat, its use is about even from age 18 to 64:

Group	Use WhatsApp
All US adults	33%
Ages 18–29	37%
Ages 30–49	39%
Ages 50–64	36%
Ages 65+	20%
Hispanic adults	56%
Asian adults (English speakers only)	51%
Black adults	40%
White adults	24%
Urban / suburban / rural	44% / 33% / 22%

Pew’s trend for WhatsApp: 22% (2018), 20% (2019), 23% (2021), 29% (2023), 30% (2024), 32% (2025), 33% (2026). Pew changed how people could respond to these surveys in 2023 and again in 2024, so compare across those years with care.

WhatsApp worldwide (survey and app data)

Independent data comes from two research companies, GWI (surveys) and Similarweb (app tracking), as published by DataReportal:

• 54.4% of internet users aged 16 and over used WhatsApp in the past month in GWI’s Q4 2025 survey; leaving out China and Russia, where many Western apps are blocked or restricted, the figure is 69.8% (DataReportal, April 2026).
• 93.6% of online adults use a chat or messenger app such as WhatsApp or WeChat each month (same report).
• 17.4% of social media users aged 16 and over named WhatsApp their favourite social platform, ahead of Instagram (16.4%) and Facebook (13%); YouTube wasn’t one of the options (DataReportal, October 2025).
• The typical WhatsApp Android user opens the app more than 20 times a day and spends an average of 59 minutes a day in it, according to Similarweb’s Android data (same report).

How many people use iMessage?

Nobody outside Apple knows, because Apple doesn’t publish an iMessage user count, and we found no current figure from Apple in its results, press releases or support pages. The last one we found is from June 2012, when Apple’s Scott Forstall said at its developer conference that iMessage had 140 million users (TechCrunch). These are the official numbers that come closest today, and why none of them answers the question:

• More than 2.5 billion active Apple devices, the installed base Apple reported on 29 January 2026 (Apple). That counts devices, not people: one person can own an iPhone, an iPad, a Mac and a Watch, and not every device owner uses iMessage.
• The EU’s threshold. In September 2023 the European Commission said Apple’s iMessage met the Digital Markets Act’s thresholds, which include providing a service to more than 45 million monthly active end users in the EU (and more than 10,000 yearly business users). It opened an investigation into Apple’s argument that iMessage shouldn’t be regulated as a gateway anyway (European Commission). So more than 45 million monthly users in the EU, as of 2023, is the most recent officially backed floor we found, and it covers the EU only.

How iMessage works matters for any comparison. Apple says iMessage sends messages between Apple devices over Wi-Fi or cellular data, in blue bubbles; texts to other phones go as RCS (from iOS 18, with a carrier that supports it) or SMS and MMS, in green bubbles (Apple). Carrier and Google counts cover only the green kind: nearly 2.2 trillion SMS and MMS in the US in 2024 (CTIA) and more than a billion RCS messages a day by May 2025 (Google). For more on texting volumes and habits, see our texting statistics.

WhatsApp vs iMessage in the US: which is bigger?

There’s no sourced answer. Meta reports WhatsApp’s US monthly users (more than 100 million, January 2025) and Pew measures the share of adults who use it (33%, 2026). Apple reports neither for iMessage, and Pew’s social media survey doesn’t ask about it. Many people assume iMessage is the bigger of the two in the US, but we found no published measurement either way.

For what each app is like to use on a computer, see iMessage vs WhatsApp vs Telegram on Mac.

Telegram statistics

Telegram is privately held, so its figures come from posts by its founder, Pavel Durov, rather than regulated earnings reports.

• Monthly users: Durov posted on 19 March 2025 that Telegram had “significantly over” 1 billion monthly active users (Durov). In July 2024 he had reported 950 million (Durov). A July 2026 post refers to “over a billion users” without a new exact count (Durov, 21 July 2026).
• Engagement (company figures): in the same March 2025 post, Durov said each user opens Telegram 21 times a day on average and spends 41 minutes a day on it. These are Telegram’s own numbers, not independent measurements.
• Downloads: Google Play shows Telegram’s Android app at 1B+ downloads (Google Play, checked 20 October 2026). A download bucket isn’t a user count.

Instagram and Messenger statistics

Instagram’s numbers keep rising by Meta’s own count, while independent data shows Messenger use falling.

• Instagram: Zuckerberg announced 3 billion monthly actives on 29 October 2025 (transcript) and 2 billion daily actives on 29 July 2026 (transcript). In the US, 51% of adults use Instagram, including 79% of 18- to 29-year-olds and 21% of those 65 and over (Pew, 2026).
• Messenger: in GWI’s surveys, the share of online adults using Messenger each month fell from 41.0% in Q4 2023 to 36.9% in Q4 2025, and Similarweb’s data shows worldwide use of the Messenger app falling by 15% over two years (DataReportal, April 2026). The same report quotes Meta confirming it stopped delivering ads to the Messenger inbox in November 2025. We found no Messenger user count in the Meta earnings calls we read from 2024 to July 2026. For what’s left of Messenger on a computer, see Messenger on Mac.
• Meta overall: 3.60 billion people used at least one Meta app (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp or another Meta service) each day on average in June 2026, up 3% on a year earlier (Meta, 29 July 2026).

WeChat, Snapchat and Signal

• Weixin and WeChat: 1.439 billion combined monthly active users at 30 June 2026, up 2% from 1.411 billion a year earlier (Tencent, 12 August 2026). Weixin is the app’s name in mainland China; Tencent reports the two together.
• Snapchat: 26% of US adults use it, including 56% of 18- to 29-year-olds and 4% of those 65 and over (Pew, 2026).
• Signal: we found no user count published by Signal. Google Play lists its Android app at 100M+ downloads (Google Play, checked 20 October 2026), which says nothing about how many people use it each month.

Numbers that don’t exist (and why you see them anyway)

Some of the most-searched messaging statistics have no primary source at all. If you see these quoted as fact, here’s what’s actually known:

• iMessage users. The last Apple figure we found is from 2012 (140 million), so any current number you see is someone else’s estimate. The most recent officially backed floor is the EU’s: more than 45 million monthly users in the EU in 2023.
• iMessage vs WhatsApp in the US. No source measures both the same way (see above).
• Messenger’s current user count. We found no separate figure in the Meta earnings calls we read from 2024 to July 2026; older numbers still circulate without dates.
• Signal’s user count. We found no official count from Signal; the numbers in circulation are estimates. Download counts aren’t users.
• Telegram’s exact 2026 user count. The last specific figure is from March 2025.
• “WhatsApp has 2 billion users” vs “3 billion”. Both were true at the time: 2 billion was announced in February 2020, and WhatsApp’s site now says more than 3 billion. Compilations that drop the dates end up contradicting each other.

Why these numbers keep appearing: statistics round-up pages copy each other, a figure gets re-dated each year without new data, and a gap like “how many people use iMessage” invites someone to fill it with an estimate that then gets quoted as fact.

Using several of these apps on a Mac?

Most people reading this use more than one of these apps. If yours include iMessage and WhatsApp, Tera Chat for Mac (our app) puts iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and Tinder in one inbox and drafts replies in your own texting style. It’s free, needs a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 15 or later, and covers only those networks (plus Hinge in beta, read-only), so not Signal, Messenger, Snapchat or WeChat. For the wider field, see the best messaging apps for Mac and how to combine WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram and Instagram. And if you’re curious about your own habits, our free chat analyzer reads a WhatsApp chat export, a Telegram Desktop JSON export or Instagram’s JSON message download in your browser, without uploading it, and shows each person’s typical reply time, who starts conversations and when you talk most.

How we checked: on 20 October 2026 we opened every source linked above: WhatsApp’s About page and its February 2020 blog post; Meta’s transcripts for the July 2024, January 2025, October 2025, January 2026, April 2026 and July 2026 earnings calls (plus, for Messenger, the April 2024, October 2024 and July 2025 calls) and its July 2026 results release; Pew’s social media fact sheet (updated 19 October 2026); DataReportal’s October 2025 and April 2026 reports; Pavel Durov’s Telegram channel; Tencent’s second-quarter 2026 results; Apple’s January 2026 results and its iMessage support page; TechCrunch’s June 2012 report of Apple’s iMessage figure; the European Commission’s September 2023 Digital Markets Act announcement; Google’s RCS announcement; CTIA’s 2025 survey highlights; and the Google Play listings for Signal and Telegram. Figures are copied as published, with no rounding that changes them. We’ll update this page when Meta, Tencent, Telegram or Pew publish new figures.