Brazil: usage of selected mobile messaging apps 2018-2024

Approximately 98 percent of smartphone owners surveyed in Brazil in February 2024 said they had WhatsApp installed on their mobile devices. Instagram and Facebook Messenger ranked second and third, as 88 percent and 69 percent of respondents claimed to have the two Meta's applications on their devices. Meanwhile, 63 percent of interviewees claimed to have Telegram on their phones, up from 60 percent on the previous year. Furthermore, 13 percent of smartphone users in that South American country stated that they had the Signal app on their devices.

‘Zapzap’ as a lifestyle

The use of WhatsApp in Brazil – where the app is often nicknamed ‘zapzap’ – spans beyond the realm of texting. Whereas the share of Brazilian smartphone owners who send SMS text messages declined, most WhatsApp users utilized the app to exchange text and voice messages, besides images. It also serves as a sales channel for small and medium-sized enterprises.

WhatsApp’s competition gets tighter

This app kept a stable penetration rate in Brazil in the past few years, but Telegram and Signal are trending up. Still, competitors of WhatsApp have a long way to go: only 30 percent of Telegram users surveyed in Brazil in 2024 said they used the app daily or almost daily, despite the rate of respondents that stated never or almost never using it coming down to two percent.