WeChat and Facebook Messenger are the most popular messaging apps in China and the United States respectively, but lack of security and interoperability, or communicating with individuals who are not on the same app, remain top complaints among users.
Results of a study by tyntec show that security will be a cost of entry into any market if apps seek to become the dominant form of mobile interaction, especially as in-app purchasing continues to grow – 95% of Chinese respondents and 64% of US respondents have purchased products or services through a messaging app.
Tyntec performed the messaging app survey with SurveyMonkey collecting data of 1,045 respondents from SurveyMonkey audience panels in the US and China between October 17 and October 21. The respondents were preselected for owning smartphones and completed the survey online.
Both markets (US and China) identified social networks as the "most frequently used" one-to-one communication channel with 26% citing this in both US and China.
In the US, 21% use messaging apps most frequently, compared to 13% in China. The slightly lower frequency of messaging app usage in China can be attributed to messaging apps being relatively new in the market.
Despite their slower start, Chinese respondents are more likely to use multiple messaging apps for one-to-one communication (90%) compared to US respondents (60%).