14 DAY TRIAL // With BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) recently launched on Android and iOS platform, war is raging on the messenger market harder than ever.
The new entrants, BBM and LINE services, report huge number of users gained within the last couple of weeks. The fact that there are more alternatives on the mobile messaging market is a good thing for end users, but makes things more difficult for those who provide these services.
When someone wins a fair share of the market, another one loses and in this case, it looks like Facebook is the company that lost ground the most lately.
One Device Research has conducted a survey in five countries in order to find out how many mobile phone users are taking advantage of messaging services and which ones they prefer the most.
The survey covers some of the most important markets for messaging services: United States, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and China.
According to the results taken from 3,759 smartphone owners in the five countries mentioned earlier, 44% who use social messaging prefer WhatsApp Messenger, while 35% use Facebook Messenger.
It’s interesting though that the survey shows that some messaging services are stronger in some countries, such as BBM, which leads in markets like South Africa and Indonesia, and almost negligible in other markets.
Facebook is still leading in the United States, but overall seems to have lost the top spot as the most popular social messaging application to WhatsApp.
The combined leader in these five markets will probably improve its standing with the new release of WhatsApp for Nokia Asha, which is very popular in emerging markets like some of the ones included in the survey.
The researching company mentioned that its survey took place between October 25 and November 10, during which 3,759 Android and iOS smartphone owners across five countries answered their questionnaire through a mobile browser.