By Nicole Nguyen
I went to a wedding last month that was coordinated on WhatsApp. The couple created a "community" that included a group chat and an announcements-only channel. The dozens of attendees -- primarily iPhone-toting Americans -- happily participated.
My thought: Is the U.S. finally catching on to the international hit that is WhatsApp?
The Meta-owned app is the world's default messaging platform, with over three billion users. When I lived in France, every new friend, the house cleaner and even our go-to rotisserie chicken spot used WhatsApp.
Stateside, adoption has been slower. Most Americans use an iPhone and iMessage, the default "blue bubble" service that powers the Messages app on Apple products. People in the U.S. tended to reserve WhatsApp for loved ones abroad -- or "green bubble" friends with an Android device. Apple's internal research, publicized during Epic Games' 2020 litigation, found that just 16% of U.S. iPhone users were on WhatsApp.
In recent years, WhatsApp's U.S. growth has accelerated. Monthly active iOS users last quarter were up 39% compared with the same period in 2020, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
Last year, Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg shared that WhatsApp reached 100 million monthly users in the U.S., with over half on iPhone. WhatsApp saw peak new downloads -- over two million -- from Apple's App Store in both May and July of this year, according to app-data tracker Appfigures.
Yes, blue-bubble snobs are breaking out of Apple's walled garden. Why? Big groups.
The bigger, the better
A decade and a half after its launch, WhatsApp finally released iPad and Apple Watch apps this year.
The iPad version is great. The Apple Watch app isn't as useful as I'd hoped. Notifications show the message in full, but WhatsApp still doesn't work over the watch's cellular connection, so you can't leave your iPhone behind. Meta said it's "just the start" of the Apple Watch experience, so hopefully it gets fixed.
On the surface, iMessage and WhatsApp seem similar. Both are end-to-end encrypted messaging services for sending texts or multimedia.
iMessage works only with other iOS devices, while WhatsApp is available on multiple systems. Apple added a new texting standard to Messages called Rich Communication Services, or RCS, last year. It improved cross-platform messaging but still lacks full encryption and in-line replies.
iPhone users say WhatsApp is better for managing the chaos of group chats.
"Once a group gets over a certain size, it seems it always moves to WhatsApp," said Ben Bajarin of San Jose, Calif., CEO of market-research firm Creative Strategies. Apple's iMessage caps conversations at 32 participants; WhatsApp allows 1,024.
"My inner circle is in iMessage, and my outer circle is in WhatsApp," Bajarin said. He is in about a dozen different WhatsApp groups for sports teams, local community groups and clubs. Over the past year, he has been using WhatsApp more for work with clients outside the U.S.
Sophie Benjamin, the iPhone-using bride from that October wedding, stumbled upon WhatsApp's Communities feature, which she said was a nice surprise for wedding coordination. In the one-way broadcast channel, guests could only emoji-react, so the thread wasn't cluttered with giant stickers or, say, off-color replies from an unfiltered uncle.
The groom, Armond Esmaili, another iPhone user, said he liked that WhatsApp "feels less intrusive than text messages" -- perhaps because it isn't his default messaging app. (You can set WhatsApp as your default in iOS.) Esmaili, an internal medicine doctor, is also in several WhatsApp-based peer groups. Members seek advice, for example, on navigating tricky patient conversations -- with no identifying details, of course, he said.
Ultimately, Benjamin, who is vice president of operations at a paperwork automation company, chose WhatsApp because it was "the one service everyone was on," including the few green-bubble guests like my husband. While Android is more popular globally, its U.S. market share of the smartphone operating system has hovered around 40% since 2012.
Breaking through the wall
Zafir Khan, head of consumer product at WhatsApp, said that while "the group experience stands out," the app's growth in the U.S. stems from several factors. The app optimizes messages in low-connectivity areas and provides features such as a sticker maker and disappearing messages.
WhatsApp, which built its reputation on a longstanding commitment to privacy, has to delicately balance initiatives from its parent company Meta -- including money-making ones. Recently, it began rolling out ads in a separate tab and gave Meta AI more prominent placement.
Alex Watt, an engineer in Pittsburgh who uses a Google Pixel Android phone, said he has seen more conversations move to WhatsApp lately, including a 50-person chat with young members of his church. He hasn't seen ads but "if it becomes obnoxious, that would be a concern."
Apple, to its credit, added new WhatsApp-y features to iMessage in its most recent iOS release, such as polls and group-chat typing indicators. But WhatsApp is still winning over users. I prefer Signal for its simplicity and focus on privacy, but can't deny that WhatsApp is more fun.
Anirudh Kamath said WhatsApp is "so much more functional than iMessage," especially for searching conversations.
Kamath, an AI startup co-founder who lives in San Francisco, said he has definitely noticed the WhatsApp uptick. Still, he knows he'll continue using Apple's products for a long time. "The network effects of iMessage and FaceTime are too strong to escape anytime soon," he said.
Write to Nicole Nguyen at nicole.nguyen@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 16, 2025 07:00 ET (12:00 GMT)
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