Messaging Apps Are The Growth Story Of The Decade In Mobile [CHART]

The rise of messaging apps is the most explosive tech growth story in recent memory.

Between March 2013 and March 2014, the messaging app market - as represented by the top seven apps - expanded by 148%, adding 900 million users. While photo-sharing and Instagram also saw explosive growth at around the same time, messaging is a much wider and more international category, with many players finding success and ways to monetize their services.

The chart and data are from a new report from BI Intelligence, which takes a deep dive into the messaging wars with exclusive estimates for monthly active users for all the top global messaging platforms - including some like Snapchat and LINE, which do not release MAU numbers. The chart above and the data behind it are downloadable exclusively for BI Intelligence subscribers.

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There's a few other dynamics that are worth noting, too:

• WhatsApp blew past all the messaging app competition in mid-2013 and never looked back.
• By February of this year, WhatsApp already had 100 million more monthly active users than its nearest competitor, China-based WeChat.
• Facebook Messenger is still several times smaller than the top three messaging apps. Despite its global footprint and deep integration with Facebook, it's smaller than Japan-based LINE, which is most popular in East and Southeast Asia and a handful of other countries.
• Snapchat, which only recently incorporated video calls, is running neck-and-neck with messaging and voice calling app, Tango.

The report is full of charts and data that can be easily downloaded and put to use.