Here's Why Mobile Messaging Apps Have Gotten So Much Attention Lately

From the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook, to the growing prominence of anonymous messaging apps like Whisper and Secret, mobile-social messaging is having a tech moment.

Why?

Because these apps are incredibly popular. Last year, three of the world's top 10 social properties were messaging platforms: WhatsApp, LINE, and WeChat.

In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we take a global snapshot of social networks and find a lot of other surprises as well. For example, YouTube is close behind Facebook for monthly active users (MAUs), or in second-place worldwide. And China's Qzone is the third largest social property in the world in terms of audience size.

In the report, BI Intelligence compares the world's largest social networks in two ways. First, we evaluate the biggest properties side-by-side in terms of total audience size. Then we analyze the markets where each has the most growth potential, and their demographics in terms of country-of-origin.

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Here are some of the other big surprises:

• Nearly 90% of Facebook users reside outside the U.S.
• Thirty percent of Facebook's users reside in Asia.
• About one-quarter of LinkedIn's users are in India. In fact, there are more Indians than Americans on LinkedIn and Google+.
• Major social networks that are officially blocked in China still have many millions of Chinese active users who use various stratagems to access these services. Google+ has 100 million users in China, Twitter has 80 million, and YouTube has 60 million.
• Asia-Pacific overall has more active social media users than any region, and several Southeast Asian markets are off the charts when it comes to mobile social media usage. Eighty-two percent of Thai smartphone owners access social media daily on their phones.

In full, the report:

• Provides a census comparing social networks to one another in active audience size
• Examines the nuances of how each of the largest social networks shape up on a global level and where their audiences are coming from
• Posits where the major social networks might next build their audience
• Takes a regional look at how social media usage has developed in the biggest markets, and how behavior is shifting
• Zooms back out to take a broad look at where the biggest social audiences reside

For full access to all BI Intelligence's charts, data, and analysis on the mobile, social, e-commerce, video, and payments industries, sign up for a free trial.