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It's odd how ubiquitous WhatsApp is in Europe. How and why did it catch on there so completely?
by jdlyga 2y ago
It's odd how ubiquitous WhatsApp is in Europe. How and why did it catch on there so completely?
- EduardoBautista 2y agoI am sure it’s directly correlated to iPhone market share.
- Zak 2y agoIt's not. Whatsapp was popular in Europe before iMessage existed. The ubiquity of unlimited SMS on US phone plans in the early 2010s is probably the biggest factor.
- pfortuny 2y agoIn Spain I guess it is because SMS have never been free (or similar). It took off well before wifi was widespread in homes and offices, IIRC. Edit: it costs me around .10€ to send an SMS...
- mettamage 2y agoSame in the Netherlands.
- lormayna 2y agoIn Italy SMS are included in the monthly plan since many years, but everyone is using WhatsApp too.
- create-username 2y agoMy plan includes free SMS, but nobody is capable of reading or sending SMS anymore. Mobile phones can only have three apps: phone, WhatsApp and shop discount apps
- stackskipton 2y agoEasy. European Countries are so small, esp compared to America, and there is a ton of movement between them so need to communicate between countries was high. However, SMS between different country cell networks was extremely expensive for various reasons. However, data and data roaming was not. Since WhatApp is entirely data to cellular company, it caught on and network effect took over.
- mettamage 2y agoIt’s also nice to use for calling with US people that are willing to put up with it. How do US people do intentional calls?
- Zak 2y agoMost don't. The few who have international contacts tend to pick whatever their contact uses.
- stackskipton 2y agoDepending on your family/travel background, it's very possible you don't or don't enough to need WhatsApp. We travel overseas but everyone we have met just keep in communication over Facebook. All our family is in the United States. When we are overseas, we just use wifi calling to communicate back home or since most people have iPhones, iMessage/Facetime. My brother is about distance of Moscow to Lisbon from me, still a free call since it's domestic.
- GRiMe2D 2y agoIn addition to that, WhatsApp was available at the time on Symbian devices and Nokia’s S40 devices (I remember downloading Jar and Jad files for button mobile devices, and each update was free up to year then it was a dollar for a year)
- PokemonNoGo 2y agoCrazy! You made me remember i actually once paid for "something" when it comes to Whatsapp! Then they added somekind of disclaimer "will be a paid service xxxxxyyyy" but it never happened! Yes I don't remember what I paid for.
- nottorp 2y agoPretty sure i paid 0.99 for ... something. I don't remember what either. Might have been 1 year of service after the first year.
- timbit42 2y agoFrom what I've heard, it's ubiquitous everywhere except North America, where it is still quite popular. In South America, everyone uses it, even to message their doctor with a random question.
- Yeul 2y agoFree messaging. And nowadays free calls- when my brother calls me from Japan he uses WhatsApp. I have no idea how they make money but I'm not complaining. Imagine a time when telcos literally demanded 50 cents for every time you asked "where are you".
- nottorp 2y agoI'm not sure if the sms cost was the reason, at least in my fuzzy memories. I think by the time whatsapp showed up I had already had unlimited national sms for a couple years. However, sms is extremely limited and mms is crap. Whatsapp is text messaging that works. iMessage is useless because more than half of your contacts have Android. Plus it's less intuitive and has fewer features than WhatsApp. Possibly because it's designed by americans used to the dark ages of sms :)
- mmooss 2y agoAnd why not Signal?
- joseda-hg 2y agoWhatsapp is huge more or less anywhere that isn't iMessage or Line Dominated, so... S. America, Africa, Europe and some subset of Asian Countries They got a HUGE headstart back when Black Berry was the smartphone to have and basically never stopped