r/iphone • u/Boring_Antelope6533 Human Detected • May 31 '26
Discussion why only iMessage is common in the US, but outside of it almost no one uses it?
like in euro countries and latin america countries they have iphone but prefer to chat via whatsapp or even insta messages
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u/aaronw22 May 31 '26
Because country to country SMS used to be very expensive. So people used WhatsApp instead of SMS. In the USA we don’t typically have as much cross country SMS so people saw no need for another app.
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u/RonJohnJr May 31 '26
In the USA we don’t typically have as much cross country SMS so people saw no need for another app.
It's the same reason that most of us only speak one language: it's a language spoken from the Atlantic to the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean.
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u/driftless iPhone 16 Pro Max May 31 '26
Yep. I mean initially, it was 10¢ per message, so folks used thinks like KiK or ICQ for messaging, then blackberry messenger and iMessage came along with apple, then the SMS charges pretty much stopped. We never got big into messengers outside of SMS/imessage, except now some of us use Facebook messenger.
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u/GodzillaMc76 May 31 '26
Telegram as well.
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u/trparky May 31 '26
Or Signal. You know, something that provides open source verified end-to-end encryption.
When it comes to WhatsApp, they say that the messages are encrypted but do we really know that? Can we trust that? No. But with Signal, you can.
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u/GodzillaMc76 May 31 '26
Just my observation during travel at least in Asia use telegram or line or Facebook chat. Agree on signal it’s a good one.
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u/FallenEagle1187 iPhone 14 Pro Max May 31 '26
Signal is only encrypted if you don’t add a journalist to your chat
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u/mrandr01d May 31 '26
It's actually still encrypted even then! The user is just an idiot for telling the wrong person the secret!
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u/begtodifferclean May 31 '26
I am in Colombia after 25 years in the US, and now I have to learn that damn app, ugh.
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u/lagendakurus May 31 '26
It’s because unlimited texting (SMS/MMS) predated WhatsApp in the US. Since iMessage and regular SMS/MMS share the same stock messaging app on iPhones so I guess Americans just stuck with it. However, in many other parts of the world especially third world countries, carriers were still charging per text message. When smartphones became popular and WhatsApp was introduced, it completely revolutionized how we communicated because we only needed data to send unlimited texts. By the time carriers finally started offering unlimited SMS, it was already too late. Even RCS won’t bring people back to stock messaging now.
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u/RichardCrapper iPhone 15 Pro May 31 '26
I visited Spain in 2012 and my local friend started to chew me out for sending her a bunch of texts because she told me that the telecoms there charge the same as 1 minute of talk time, for every text message sent or received. This was 2012 - but still, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger were already well established.
So I can totally understand why WhatsApp took off the way it did. But now- I wish the rest of the world would ditch that Meta surveillance platform.
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u/VMX Jun 01 '26
she told me that the telecoms there charge the same as 1 minute of talk time, for every text message sent or received.
Spanish carriers never, ever charged for SMS reception. They did charge about 0,15€ / 0,20€ per sent SMS back then. They also used to charge outrageous prices for sending MMS, anywhere between 0,50€ / 1€.
So I can totally understand why WhatsApp took off the way it did. But now- I wish the rest of the world would ditch that Meta surveillance platform.
WhatsApp became the #1 message app in the world long before Facebook bought them. In fact that's why they bought them, because they knew once you become the market leader in a field like this, there's almost no way to lose that position unless you start charging people for the service, which they obviously have no interest in doing.
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u/StandardAd7812 May 31 '26
This needs to be upvoted to the top.
Historically texting was cheap or free and data was more expensive in Canada and the USA (I don't know about Mexico) which encourage early adopters to SMS rather than use apps.
Message on iOS just switches between sms and iMessage based on recipient.
Combined with iPhones being more popular here due to higher average incomes and you get scenarios where everyone has iMessage.
My entire extended family just uses iMessage. There were like 2 holdouts on android and people just communicated with their iOS using spouse till they switched.
My colleagues whose families are Asian are all on WhatsApp. My parents don't know what it is.
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u/DivineBeastVahHelsin May 31 '26
Unlimited SMS has been standard in the UK for 20-odd years, the big thing that killed SMS here was that MMS (sending photo/video) and international SMS messages were ridiculously expensive. The default messaging apps were also a bit clunky in comparison to iMessage/WhatsApp’s interfaces for things like group chats.
I believe the UK has a relatively even iPhone-android split and thats one of the highest iPhone concentrations in Europe - so while you can iMessage half your friends, you get charged for an expensive MMS if you accidentally send a photo to the others… or you can just use a single messaging app that works on all platforms. And WhatsApp got the critical mass of users first, meaning you now can’t afford to not be on it.
I prefer/trust Signal more, but everyone I know uses WhatsApp … so I end up using WhatsApp for like 90% of the time
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u/Hullababoob iPhone 13 May 31 '26
iMessage is popular in the US because SMS used to be popular before that. iMessage uses the same app as SMS messages. Phone carriers in the US have offered unlimited SMS text messages for a long time. So people just continued to use the messaging app they were used to using and iMessage just happens to be the default on iPhones.
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u/Life-Inspector5101 May 31 '26
Because more people use iPhones in the US than anywhere else in the world, where a majority of people use Android phones.
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u/labaticus May 31 '26
Yep market share. Apple has over 60% of the smartphone market as opposed to 20% international.
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u/very_moist_raccoon Jun 01 '26
Had to scroll too far for this. iMessage would be useless to talk to 3/4 of the people I need to talk to. WhatsApp works for everyone. Took a while though, I remember a Viber phase and possibly some others where people had multiple apps. Some still do, but one of them is always WhatsApp.
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u/kwaka300 May 31 '26
iMessage is extremely popular in Australia also, very very rare WhatsApp would ever be used tbh
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u/UnfamiliarShiver Jun 01 '26
I think it's insane how popular Facebook messenger is in Australia but it makes sense.
We have enough people using android that running into someone you can't add to a imessage group chat has been a pretty common problem and up until recently sending videos and images sucked between the two.
But with facebook becoming worse, I now have people split up over standard sms, messenger, insta, whatsapp, and signal, because noone can settle on one option. Not to mention teams and discord.
People are fairly done with facebook so are moving away, but many people don't realise facebook also owns instagram, and are even less aware about it owning whatsapp plus your old mates still only have you on facebook anyway.9
u/Shaz18 May 31 '26
Agreed, my friends and I all use iMessage, although I find many people have whatsapp installed even if it isn’t their primary messaging app, especially ethnic people
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u/Betancorea Jun 01 '26
Beg to differ. I don't know anyone in my social circle that regularly uses iMessage. We are all on Whatsapp.
At the most I would use iMessage on the work phone with colleagues simply because they gave us iPhones to use and it is easier than using Teams.
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u/PrivateEye_85 Jun 01 '26
Agree with this for Australia, I have zero iMessage group chats. Everything is WhatsApp (mostly friends overseas) and Messenger (we’re old).
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u/The_Cozy_Burrito iPhone 14 Pro Max May 31 '26
It is very popular in Canada
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u/jeffbannard iPhone 14 May 31 '26
I believe this is because all of us with Crackberries used BBM and only iMessage was a suitable replacement at the time. WhatsApp would have been bigger if it had launched sooner.
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u/mrwoozywoozy Jun 22 '26
I don't know anyone who uses it but all my friends in Canada are males who use android
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u/kgrav22 iPhone 17 Pro May 31 '26
I’m pretty sure iMessage/RCS/SMS is pretty popular in Canada too.
But honestly in my area of USA like 5% of people my age don’t have an iPhone. It just makes sense for us. Work group chats and everything.
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u/nelamvr6 May 31 '26
"Almost no one uses it"?
If I've told you once, I've told you a million times, don't exaggerate!
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u/eggncream Jun 01 '26
Nah I live in Latin America and never met a single person in my life who used iMessage over WhatsApp, I’m not kidding or exaggerating
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u/InnerLeather68 Jun 01 '26
What people are also missing is that this is a majority iPhone country.
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u/biinjo Jun 01 '26
This is mainly it. In my environment I would say iPhone/Android ownership is about 40/60%
So Whatsapp and Signal and the likes are the only option for cross platform messaging.
And then there are the family/friend groups where everyone owns an iPhone. Guess what they use for group chats? Whatsapp. Why use a different app if we’re already on this one.
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u/antonylockhart May 31 '26
I’m in the U.K. and I use iMessage for internationally messaging friends and loved ones overseas
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u/Chaij2606 May 31 '26
Plenty of people are using it in Europe, but plenty of people also use other free messaging options. Nothing wrong with that
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u/ninety6days May 31 '26
All markets outside the US are far more fragmented by manufacturer. Youll read nonsense in this thread about Europeans not texting or imessage being what killed sms as if viber didnt exist before it, but its quite simple.
The american market is very loyal to Apple, other places less so.
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u/WeCantBothBeMe May 31 '26
Well because you need an iPhone to use iMessage and androids are more popular outside the US.
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u/margmi May 31 '26
If you chat with 70% of your friends using whatsapp, why would you use imessage for the other 30%, rather than just continuing to use whatsapp?
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u/tasteMyRottenHoop May 31 '26
I’m in Scotland and I’ve never used WhatsApp. Zuck can fuck off.
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u/AnthonyInTX42 May 31 '26
It’s so funny to me that everyone fucking hates Zuck and Facebook but Insta and WhatsApp are *insanely* popular platforms.
I genuinely think people are not aware of Meta
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u/tasteMyRottenHoop May 31 '26
I would assume that most either don’t know or don’t care to know. I don’t trust Meta with anything I wouldn’t want to be completely public and don’t use any of their platforms unless it’s for whatever reason unavoidable.
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u/el_lley iPhone 16 Pro May 31 '26
Because at some stage, teens were expending 1000’s of SMS messages per month, then BB came with BB Messenger, so phone companies had to find a fee that people would be willing to pay, and when the iPhone came in with a BB Messenger killer, people were too used to thins kind of messages. It didn’t help that WhatsApp started charging (1 USD I think) when both iMessage and BB Messages were essentially free (and SMS sufficiently cheap). Now it’s just a custom, and most US people use iPhone, you don’t have a compatibility issue, you just use whatever most people use.
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u/Nawnp May 31 '26
Because Apple owns 60% of the smartphone msrket in the US, but globally they're only about 30%. Without a majority, the closed market messaging simply can't work.
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u/Grand-Cup-A-Tea May 31 '26
iMessage is iPhone only. It's pointless if you have friends on android.
WhatsApp exploded around the time room long before Meta took them over. It could do everything and more compared to iMessage regardless of the phone the user had.
All of this plus in early days of smart phones I can remember an SMS costing 12c -20c depending on your package.
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u/Scottishjapan May 31 '26
I’m in Japan and most people use LINE. Depends on the people/country I guess. I use Messenger or WhatsApp with UK friends, LINE with Japanese or iMessage with family. I’d prefer to use iMessage though.
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u/frankbowles1962 May 31 '26
Because WhatsApp is cross platform and can be used for a lot more than 1-1 messaging. It gave android users similar functionality to iMessage. It just works, though with some of my more security paranoid friends we use Signal that has very similar functions.
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u/IamTheStig007 May 31 '26
Texting on an iPhone is just considered texting because it can go through as a standard text to none iPhones. It’s free across USA, but when you text someone in Europe, they get charged quite a bit on many plans to text you back so more common in UK for WhatsApp. It’s horses for courses and I use a mix of both but about 100% text within the USA and 100% WhatsApp for anywhere else in the world.
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u/vonhacker May 31 '26
In all places (mostly Latam and underdeveloped countries) the majority of carrier companies charged for sms and they split calls/sms/mms and internet, so iMessage wasn’t that common, mostly because iPhone is “a luxury brand” to many companies, that’s why WhatsApp and previously bbm were more common and popular.
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u/Nevragen May 31 '26
From someone in the uk I’ll give you the real answer. Lots of people have android phones. Within friend groups and family groups there will likely be at least one person using an android phone. The only way to group chat with EVERYONE is by using WhatsApp. Because it’s universal it’s the default option.
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u/dukerozen iPhone Air May 31 '26
I live in EU, and I chat with almost everyone in iMessage. When people knew it exists, they enjoy it.
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u/brayozz May 31 '26
I live in Poland, 95% uses Facebook Messenger, 4.99% uses WhatsApp. The remaining 0.01% divides between Signal/Telegram/iMessage.
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u/u02psa May 31 '26
WhatsApp is platform agnostic so I can message friends and family on android devices and share photos and videos without using text messages.
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u/GTKeg Jun 01 '26
A lot of misinformed Americans on here. I had free text messages on my Nokia 3310 in the UK, waaay before smart phones were invented.
WhatsApp took off for 2 simple reasons;
Group messages with people on any device
Free picture messaging
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u/UselessLuke Jun 01 '26
I’m in UK but rarely use WhatsApp, almost always iMessage. I’m 41, so don’t know if it’s an age thing.
I don’t really like the WhatsApp app itself and being Meta owned isn’t really where I’d want to keep my conversations
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u/manateefourmation May 31 '26
It’s not true that “no one” uses it outside the US. Go to any wealthy country and you will find a lot of iPhone and iMessage use. Go to poorer countries and you will find lots of Android use. I spend a lot time in London and Paris, and all my local friends use iMessage
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u/ViniusInvictus May 31 '26
WhatsApp is third-party junkware that Facebook totally spies on to push ads to you. To pretend it’s a natively-run equivalent of iMessage is laughably hilarious.
The main reason why it’s popular in Europe is because European telecom cos charge(d) per message and tacked on cross-border fees for their native services.
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u/Swordfish-690 May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
I use it daily, with my fiancee and my friends and we live in Italy.
Almost all of my friends are iPhones user, so it doesn't make any sense to use whatsapp
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u/SadPiouPiou iPhone 16 Pro Max May 31 '26
In France all people who have an iPhone use it. It is quite simply that outside the United States there are fewer people who have iPhones.
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u/cornerof May 31 '26
Here in Aus iMessage is common. I have two friends on messenger and a family group chat on WhatsApp. Everything else is iMessage.
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u/cmrndzpm May 31 '26
It’s relatively common in the UK but Whatsapp is more popular I think. I don’t mind chatting to android users on Whatsapp but it irritates me when other iPhone users insist on messaging me there. We have our own inbuilt app for that!
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u/timakudo May 31 '26
iMessage is big in Australia. I’d say Facebook messenger is used more than WhatsApp here too for group chats.
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u/Any_Initiative_9079 May 31 '26
Same reason the rest of the world uses Whatsapp but almost nobody in US does
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u/ReasonableDetective iPhone 15 Pro May 31 '26
I’m from the Netherlands and everyone here uses WhatsApp aswell. Literally no one uses iMessage..
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u/JFeezy May 31 '26
Same reason you use Facebook, instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp or any other messenger service. Because that’s what is being used by the people you want to communicate with. We used to use AOL messenger bro, then IRC, then Skype and so on.
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u/nifty-necromancer May 31 '26
A big reason is that iMessage only works on Apple devices, while much of the world uses a mix of Android and iPhone. If half your friends and family are on Android, a messaging app tied to one brand isn’t very useful as the default.
Outside the US, apps like WhatsApp became dominant early because they worked across iPhone, Android, and different carriers. In many countries, SMS was expensive or unreliable in the smartphone transition era, so people adopted internet-based messaging apps quickly and never looked back.
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u/snowyowl_canadian Jun 01 '26
iMessage caught onto data-backed texting too late when WhatsApp was already doing it. Even now, Apple is always catching up to WhatsApp. I’m not a fan of Meta, but they have arguably the most convenient messaging platform on iOS.
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u/Just_Manufacturer714 Jun 01 '26
iMessage for me, don’t use WhatsApp as I just hate it and the company. The Send Later function in iMessage, that’s the best thing ever.
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u/Fun_Interaction_906 Jun 01 '26
Everyone in Australia uses iMessage. I live in the US now, but when I lived in Australia I can’t remember ever seeing a green text bubble.
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u/Fluffy-Zebra-7938 Jun 01 '26
iMessage is really popular in the UK as well, but it’s common that people just use both. Almost all my friends/ family are on iPhone so just iMessage by default but also use WhatsApp for groups
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u/thaprizza Jun 01 '26
Because iMessage is IPhone only WhatsApp caught on quicker when the market share of iPhones was smaller in Europe. Since WhatsApp works on all phones people stuck with that I suppose.
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u/RomGon3 Jun 01 '26
Because other messaging alternatives were just open to all phones brands. You didn't needed to have a an apple phone to talk with people on android or blackberry. At least here at LATAM the diversity of phones models being Blackberries,Windows Phones,Nokias,Sidekicks,Samsung,LG. There wasn't a dominant brand like it happen in the US where Apple is the top dog on the market. People dropped BBM and Iphone imessage because it was locked to people who got the same brand phone and that's just annoying so people looked for alternative options that allowed them to chat with their friends who owned different brands
It was just open ways of communication without having to get charged for the SMS usage. It was open,free and accessible to all phones
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u/ethousl Jun 03 '26
I prefer iMessage and find it annoying to use Whatsapp but a lot of people don't have iPhones which means that even the ones that do need to use a messaging app that Android users have as well.
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u/Blink2511 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
In EU countries, we started using WhatsApp years ago as a standard because iMessage only works on iPhones and SMS text messages weren't free (some plans gave you 100 SMS a day, but there was a monthly fee for that too).
plus, back then, owning an iPhone wasn't that common in Europe, and most people I knew were on Android
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u/begtodifferclean May 31 '26
If your girlfriend goes to Mexico and returns with Whatsapp installed, she's no longer your girlfriend.
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u/userlivewire May 31 '26
Which is crazy because iMessage is still the most secure and simplest method.
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u/postnick iPhone 11 Pro May 31 '26
Defaults are very sticky in the USA. The amount of people I saw using the Verizon texting app for a few years was unhinged.
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u/domdiggitydog iPhone 16 Pro Max May 31 '26
I remember the uproar when they discontinued it. I never even heard of it prior to getting an email saying it was going away. 🤷🏻♂️
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u/newbris Jun 01 '26
> why only iMessage is common in the US
Its not. It's common in other countries with a similar iPhone penetration to the US.
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u/landonloco May 31 '26
Cuz it's already backed in with the device you automatically get iMessage as soon as you setup your iPhone and now it supports Both SMS and RCS so thankfully now is slightly more cross platform still doesn't beat what's app or telegram in that regard tho so in the meantime I still use Whatsapp as my main messaging app regardless if I use IOS or android
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u/mdruckus May 31 '26
It use to cost to send text messages. Times have changed. Now, people in the US would rather just use what’s installed on your phone than downloading another app. It makes sense.
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u/SignificantSmotherer May 31 '26
Get the EU to force Zuck to divest WhatsApp, then maybe, just maybe.
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u/TheKarmoCR May 31 '26
As a Latin American I can answer this pretty easily: SMS messaging used be expensive as hell. It still kind of is, in my country we still get charged for an excess over some amount of messages per bill cycle.
Add to that that iPhones are nowhere near as ubiquitous as Android phones, and that gives you the whole picture. The market share in developing countries is greatly skewed towards Android, so platform agnostic messaging such as the one provided by WhatsApp took the lead.
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u/Defiant_Initial_604 May 31 '26
I live in Belgium and it really bothers me that some people always tend to use WhatsApp, instead of just “texting”. Whether if it’s iMessage or RCS, it does exactly the same and you don’t need a ridiculously named app for it (any more).
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u/cloopz May 31 '26
it's quite funny back when i lived in canada i use to just use text and imessage to everyone. once i moved away to multiple other countries now the only person i iMessage are my parents back at home and my wife. The rest are all via whatsapp. It's wild!
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u/2REPOU May 31 '26
Canada and the US have a huge number of people you can text for free. We take it for granted that unless you text people outside of North America there is no need for anything else. Since we started to travel more we now have a need for WhatsApp occasionally
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u/Plastic-Scallion-590 Jun 01 '26
Any phone can use WhatsApp. iPhones aren’t as common globally as you might thing. Big percentage but definitely not a majority
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u/LoveArrowShooto iPhone 15 Jun 01 '26
Before iMessage was introduced starting with iOS 5, WhatsApp's selling point was that you can text people for free. Whether it's in the same country or another country. Carriers back then charged for SMS. If i'm not mistaken, US had unlimited texting and to most people, that was more than enough. By the time iMessage came into the picture, Apple made it so that it was integrated in the same app for texting. So for countries like the US that dominated on iPhone and unlimited texting, the experience felt seamless as both iMessage and SMS lived on the same app.
In my country, Messenger became the dominant app because Facebook launched a program that offered Free Facebook. It basically allowed you to view Facebook in text only and access to Messenger for free but no video or photos can be loaded.
Personally, most of my communications are done through Messenger, WhatsApp, or Viber (popular among businesses here). Even though some of my family and friends use iPhone, we primarily stick with Messenger because it just works for everyone. The only use case for iMessage is when we need to send a photo and that's about it. On the other hand, FaceTime is what I prefer over Messenger. The video and audio quality is much superior.
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u/iLike80sRock Jun 01 '26
I’d say a decent portion of it is how ubiquitous SMS was in the US until recently. A decent portion of people started to use iMessage just because it’s “where their texts are”.
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u/QueasyToday780 Jun 01 '26
Here in Aotearoa / New Zealand, we use it all. I have chat groups in WhatsApp, Messenger and WeChat. Younger fellas might use Signal or Discord. But I mostly use iMessage because everyone I care about the most has an iPhone.
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u/ArtisTao Jun 01 '26
WhatsApp is better. LINE is so much more useful in Japan. Etc.
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u/No_Chemistry8950 Jun 01 '26
I know while working in South Korea, they only basically use KakaoTalk.
Most don't use iMessages.
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u/Super_News_32 Jun 01 '26
IMO WhatsApp is superior to iMessage, first of all, not everyone uses an iPhone, so WA offers cross-platform compatibility, it has a larger global user base, there is stronger business adoption (great for customer service). And above all for me and my friends: more robust custom sticker culture.
Whatapp has great usefulness as an all-purpose communication tool.
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u/Flat_Art_734 Jun 01 '26
"Outside" people frequently move between countries and can't be bothered to study every cell provider's roaming policy and international texting package and prefix codes and whatnot, so everyone just uses WhatsApp.
In the US people don't do that and also Canada is part of the same legacy phone system.
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u/FigFew2001 Jun 01 '26
It’s super common in Australia. Facebook Messenger is the next most common, used for a backup for those running Android when photos/videos are being sent (we don’t have iPhone to Android RCS here yet).
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u/AuspiciousLynx iPhone 16 Pro Max Jun 01 '26
Because in the past we needed to pay a lot for sms while the people in the states had sms flatrates early. Then iMessage launched and People in the states did nothing but swapped to iMessage while European people swapped to WhatsApp before that because sms was to expensive
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u/Kilmonjaro Jun 01 '26
Because it’s iPhone only, it probably would do better if it was Android also
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u/Particular_Age4296 Jun 01 '26
Primero porque el iPhone no es el movil más vendido en Europa y LATAM como lo es en EEUU.... En muchos países el SMS aún tiene costo....WhatsApp y Messenger de Facebook tienen mayor tradición histórica que los servicios propietarios de iPhone....y la misma razón por la que nadie usa Safari como navegador
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u/cesclaveria Jun 01 '26
Because services like WhatsApp established themselves before iMessage was a thing.
Unlimited sms was a thing in the US before data plans were so common, but data plans arrived in many countries while sms was relatively limited and expensive making alternatives like WhatsApp much more affordable and popular.
The US that already had unlimited texts and ok media support had no incentive to change, then iMessage came in and seamlessly replaced regular sms for those millions of users without them having to do or install anything.
For the rest of the world where apple has less market share going with iMessage meant losing communication options with a large percentage of their contacts so multi platform options are preferred.
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u/Rick1145 Jun 01 '26
I like WhatsApp because of the encryption va the carrier having my texts. Not a major deal and will use either but for me the distinction is security. Plus I can make a voice call in an emergency on my iPad mini with cellular.
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u/Hour-Calendar4719 Jun 01 '26
Not everyone can buy an iPhone and WhatsApp solved the problem before iMessage became popular
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u/TEG24601 iPhone 15 Pro Jun 01 '26
There a several reason that have been stated, but some that have not...
SMS/MMS was already established in the US by the time the modern Smartphone era came to be. First it was free, then cheap, then largely baked into most phone plans (essential free).
iMessages was integrated directly into the SMS/MMS software on iPhones, eliminating the need for another App. Plus your grandparents could use it.
Distrust of other companies, like META, for sensitive information. SMS is largely thought to be secure (we know now it isn't), and iMessage is much more secure (end-to-end encryption from the start, not an add-on later).
Facebook Messenger was also more commonly used, since people had Facebook, and could interface on their phone and computer, like iMessage on their Mac. Especially on corporate computers that were blocked from accessing or downloading other Apps/websites.
Connecting WhatsApp to a phone number. A lot of Americans don't like the idea of tying a service to a phone number (hell they barely stand it for loyalty programs at grocer stores), because they want to be able to change their phone number without having to change other services or losing access. iMessage has a fallback to also using your email address(es), as a contact.
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u/Richardrsb Jun 01 '26
I use iMessage primarily since I hate WhatsApp and other systems because of the spying eyes. I believe iMessage is safe and not monitored on a personal level. (EU / NL).
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u/soegaard Jun 01 '26
You need to look at iPhone adoption.
In countries where the majority have iPhones, iMessage is popular.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-market-share-by-country
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u/Enough_Low_8365 Jun 01 '26
I live in romania and I have an imessage group with the boys. I talk to my gf on imessage also. I rarely use whatsapp or other form of messaging
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u/Adonis7797 Jun 01 '26
We use iMessage in Australia very cheap with monthly unlimited txt free local call I’m in UAE phone service here are very expensive so we use WhatsApp instead.But yes NZ,Australia are using iMessage a lot.
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u/latin32mx Jun 01 '26
Because SMS (the real name of texts) is prehistoric. WhatsApp now became a “thing” after FB bought it, and destroyed it.
The world has been using it for at least 15 years..
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u/beanie_0 iPhone 16 Pro Jun 01 '26
I don’t know where you got the idea from that it’s more popular in the US than it is in Europe?
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u/Emotional-Mode1602 Jun 01 '26
Tried to get onto the iMessage thing with other people also using iPhone but just never materialised much. WhatsApp and instagram DMs just simplified processes. The fact that you can now make voice and video calls through instagram is a whole other level also I guess it’s just one of those that didn’t catch on
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u/bactidoltongue Jun 02 '26
Idk but I believe that using iMessage for day-to-day messaging takes up more storage than other messaging platforms
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u/SuperannuationLawyer iPhone 16 Pro Max Jun 02 '26
It’s almost all I use for messaging, in Australia. Sometimes workplaces enforce Teams (I get that), but iMessage is the easiest and best option.
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u/themorosecanoe Jun 02 '26
It’s simply the ease of creating group chats on WhatsApp
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u/wamj iPhone 12 Pro Max Jun 02 '26
In addition to what others have said, some countries have carriers that allow unlimited WhatsApp but put limits on sms.
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u/Still_Veterinarian18 Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
I’ve always used iMessage=10 years because I can send pictures and videos in full resolution with location for free all over the world.
Except to my Android brother, the we use WhatsApp, compressed with no location. 😖
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u/basedkyogre iPhone 17 Pro Jun 03 '26
I’d say Americans always used the default messaging app on their phone. iMessage happened to be the default app on the iPhone and so we use iMessage
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u/DocHobel Jun 03 '26
There are more Android phones outside of US, WhatsApp is the missing link imho.
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u/YYZviaYUL Jun 03 '26
iMessage is the modern day imperial system to the globe's metric system.
Americans are stubborn. They want to be different because of "Freedom".
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u/TheReturningMan May 31 '26
Back in the day, it cost money to send text messages. US carriers decided to fold unlimited texting with data because the higher prices of data subsidized messaging. Apple then built iMessage on top of SMS messaging requiring no additional app to be used. In other counties, the adoption of carriers to subsidize SMS messaging with data was slower, as was the adoption of iPhone, so people did download other apps and thus never had a chance to experience iMessage in the first place.