WhatsApp became popular (in the UK) around the time when SMS was free for most. It was a huge jump over SMS because:
group chats
read receipts
worked on WiFi without a phone signal
picture / video messages
it was fast (or it certainly felt faster anyway)
From what I recall at the time, BBM was quite popular but WhatsApp won over in the end as it was cross platform. There was a big appetite to move away from SMS. WhatsApp wasn’t even free at the time, it had a small annual fee on Android or a one off installation fee on iOS and still gained popularity. It’s kind of surprising that the rest of the world seemed to make this jump at the same time but the US seems to be stuck on SMS.
WhatsApp became popular (in the UK) around the time when SMS was free for most. It was a huge jump over SMS because:
From what I recall at the time, BBM was quite popular but WhatsApp won over in the end as it was cross platform. There was a big appetite to move away from SMS. WhatsApp wasn’t even free at the time, it had a small annual fee on Android or a one off installation fee on iOS and still gained popularity. It’s kind of surprising that the rest of the world seemed to make this jump at the same time but the US seems to be stuck on SMS.