With 50 million WhatsApp users now rocking iPhones, can we stop talking about green bubbles?

(Image credit: NurPhoto / Getty Images)

Mark Zuckerberg has revealed on his WhatsApp channel that there are 100 million monthly WhatsApp users in the US and 50% of those use an iPhone.

This is the first time WhatsApp has revealed any data about users in the US and shows growing popularity for the chat software. WhatsApp is incredibly popular worldwide with more than 2 billion monthly active users. That said, the US market has taken its sweet time to jump on board with the cross-platform smartphone app that allows Android and iPhone users to communicate.

This comes at an interesting time when Apple is about to introduce Rich Communication Services (RCS) to all of its best iPhones with the release of iOS 18. RCS allows communication across platforms with green bubbles to send and receive higher quality images, show when someone is typing like in iMessage, and receive read receipts.

Jump on the WhatsApp train

Last year, the Department of Justice started an investigation over Apple’s refusal to allow applications like Beeper Mini to bring iMessage outside of its walled garden. With the large number of users adopting WhatsApp in the US, however, you have to wonder if the solution is third-party app adoption rather than iMessage for everyone.

In the UK, where I’m based, WhatsApp is incredibly popular and allows for easy communication across smartphone platforms. The reliance on iMessage in the US has always left me scratching my head, especially considering just how reliable and secure WhatsApp is.

In the US, Meta is ramping up its marketing push. According to TechCrunch, “In the past few years, WhatsApp has placed ad campaigns, placements in Times Square, and TV spots emphasizing privacy and end-to-end encryption protection. Most recently, it started a national campaign about WhatsApp by bringing back some of the cast of the TV show “Modern Family.”

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John-Anthony Disotto is the How To Editor of iMore, ensuring you can get the most from your Apple products and helping fix things when your technology isn’t behaving itself. Living in Scotland, where he worked for Apple as a technician focused on iOS and iPhone repairs at the Genius Bar, John-Anthony has used the Apple ecosystem for over a decade and prides himself in his ability to complete his Apple Watch activity rings. John-Anthony has previously worked in editorial for collectable TCG websites and graduated from The University of Strathclyde where he won the Scottish Student Journalism Award for Website of the Year as Editor-in-Chief of his university paper. He is also an avid film geek, having previously written film reviews and received the Edinburgh International Film Festival Student Critics award in 2019. John-Anthony also loves to tinker with other non-Apple technology and enjoys playing around with game emulation and Linux on his Steam Deck.

In his spare time, John-Anthony can be found watching any sport under the sun from football to darts, taking the term “Lego house” far too literally as he runs out of space to display any more plastic bricks, or chilling on the couch with his French Bulldog, Kermit.