WeChat, WeChat App, WeChat Messenger

If you’ve ever wondered how your favorite voice, messaging, and push to talk apps fair against the competition, a new study shows just that — at least for the most popular apps wordwide.

The study, done by GlobalWebIndex, shows that Tencent’s WeChat application has surpassed WhatsApp Messenger, Twitter, Skype, and Instagram in global popularity, now ranking fifth in the most used programs in the world.

WeChat, known as Weixin in China, is installed on some 27 percent of the world’s smartphones, while Facebook Messenger, Skype and Twitter tally in at 22% each, WhatsApp ranks at 17 percent, and Instagram lags at 11%.

It is surprising to see WeChat beating out heavy hitters like Facebook Messenger (22%) despite being largely limited to Asian countries like China, India, Hong Kong, and Malaysia as well as the Middle East. In the past few months, WeChat has boomed to hit 70 million users outside of China, in addition to its 300+ million within the country and 50 million users in the UAE.

The company recently launched its social gaming and sticker store as it looks to maintain its popularity over other messaging apps such as KakaoTalk and LINE, who were not present on the top five list.

Photo: The Next Web

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By Josh Robert Nay

Josh Robert Nay is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TruTower. He has worked in the telecommunications industry since 2003 and specializes in GSM based technology. He also uses (too many) VoIP apps and is a long-time user of BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Phone. He adores anything having to do with space exploration and writing. In addition to the links below, he can be found on LinkedIn and can also be found on his website at http://www.joshrobertnay.com.