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WhatsApp now has 100 million monthly users in the US.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke the news on his WhatsApp channel. In a follow-up blog post, he said "this milestone has been a long time coming and it proves that WhatsApp is the solution to the cross platform divide in America. No matter if you have an iPhone or Android, people want private and secure messaging that works well for everyone and that’s what we do best."
WhatsApp tells The Verge that it is growing rapidly in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Seattle. It's also seen "significant growth" in southern states, with over 10 million users in Texas alone.
A Meta spokesperson says this is the first time the company has released this type of data about WhatsApp's user base in the US since acquiring the company for $16 billion in 2014.
WhatsApp has over 2 billion users globally, with over half a billion of them residing in India, Brazil, and Indonesia. Unlike the dominance in these countries, WhatsApp has faced stiff competition in the US market, courtesy of iMessage, which comes pre-installed on iPhones.
Since iPhones make up nearly half of all US smartphones, around 26% of smartphone users in the US use iMessage for texting, while 21% use WhatsApp, largely to communicate with friends and family living in other countries.
With iOS set to adopt RCS for cross-platform messaging, things could get tougher for WhatsApp. However, the Meta-owned company argues that "WhatsApp is the solution to the cross-platform divide in America. No matter if you have an iPhone or Android, people want private and secure messaging that works well for everyone, and that's what we do best."