WhatsApp is an unmitigated hit in France, according to data from a recent FIOV study commissioned by Lemon. In total, about 30 million French people have used the application in the past 3 months, which is more than half of the over 18s.
WhatsApp, the most downloaded application in France in 2022, was installed by 7 out of 10 French since its launch in 2009and would be now used by 57% of internet users over the age of 18. 8% have not used the app recently, 7% have already uninstalled the app, 15% have never used WhatsApp and 13% of respondents do not have a phone.
Men and women seem to use WhatsApp almost equally, with 56% and 58% of respondents respectively, but the application seems to be especially popular with managers (77%), against 52% with employees. Ile-de-France also seems more fond of the application, with 64% of Ile-de-France residents, compared to 56% in the provinces.
30 million French people use WhatsApp
In total, these are therefore very close 72% of French people who already have WhatsApp installed on their device, proving Meta’s dominance in the messaging application market. The application is said to be especially popular among young people aged 25 to 34 with 71% of followers, while only 44% of users are among the over-65s.
So it represents 30 million active users in France. To put that number in context, Meta’s app is currently used by about 2 billion users. Only Facebook (2.9 billion) and YouTube (2.6 billion) can boast better performance. In 2022, WhatsApp was also on the podium of the most downloaded applications, behind TikTok and Instagram.
9 out of 10 people are members of a group on WhatsApp
According to information collected by the FIFG, 91% of French people are members of at least one group on WhatsApp. A majority of our fellow citizens belong to 1 to 4 groups, while a third say they belong to at least 5 groups, and 16% belong to at least 10 different groups.
Among the most popular group categories are, not surprisingly, family and friends, tied to 74% of the respondents say they are part of it. Next come groups dedicated to work at 54%, then groups related to an event (birthday, etc.) at 47%.
To improve its groups, WhatsApp has recently added many interesting features. For example, it is possible to discreetly leave a group and the company has also introduced the Community tab.
WhatsApp is almost unanimous among the French
According to the interviewees, their experiences on WhatsApp are generally very positive. 97% say they are very happy with their friendly or family groups (96%), or work communities (87%) or associations (93%).
However, some internet users have already experienced it bad experiences with the messaging app. Among the main inconveniences noted, we can mention incessant notifications at 63%, too many messages received at 58% or even the fact that we feel obligated to reply at 51%.
As in all groups, some users can also be annoying (38%), and sometimes even start a personal conversation within the said group (45%), which clearly has a knack for annoying the other contestants.
Millions of French people are addicted to WhatsApp
The FIOV study also points to a group of users who are quite addicted to the messaging application. If 7 out of 10 French say they can do without the application in their daily lives, 8 million French people (28%) say such a possibility seems impossible to them.
Among them we find 32% of 18-24 year olds, 30% of 25-34%, and the figure slowly decreases to 22% in people aged 65 and over. We know that the popularity of social networks exploded in 2022 with a new record for usage time, and the numbers emerging from this new study do not suggest their popularity will not diminish in the coming years.
