Viber is recognized as the most popular mobile messenger in Russia

According to the results of research conducted by J'son & Partners Consulting, in Russia the most popular messenger among smart phone owners is Viber. According to RBC, the data for analysis were collected during online surveys conducted by the company among owners of smartphones of different ages.



Vitaly Solonin, who holds the post of head of the company's wireless technology department, says that about 60% of smartphone owners use mobile messengers, which is about 50-60 million people (just a year ago there were almost two times less - about 30 million). Of this number, most users (61%) preferred the Viber messenger. WhatsApp, which in 2013 occupied a leading position, lags behind him quite a bit. Skype is in third place, lagging far behind the two main competitors. Rounding out the top five are Odnoklassniki, VKontakte and Facebook Messenger. MegaFon's representative Yulia Dorokhina observes a similar trend in the preferences of subscribers of this mobile operator.



According to Vitaly Solonin, Viber and WhatsApp messengers took the lead, far ahead of Skype, thanks to the simple registration by phone number and the fact that subscribers can dial through these messengers, even if the application is not active. In turn, Skype accepts calls only in the active mode.

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The leading position of Viber is most likely due to the fact that this messenger has more functionality and works better with a weak Internet connection. Viber provides support for voice and video calls, while WhatsApp for Android devices began to support voice calls only in the middle of last year, and the messenger has not yet got the function of video calls.



However, in similar studies, TNS Russia obtained other results in June 2015 - WhatsApp was recognized as the leader among instant messengers, who preferred 27.9% of users, Viber took second place with 26.1%, and then Skype went. which was supported by 15.9% of users. The survey was conducted in June last year in cities with a population of more than 700 thousand people.



In November 2015, the operator Scartel reported in its report that 43% of its subscribers using instant messengers prefer WhatsApp, 32% preferred Viber and only 15 chose Skype as their messenger. However, the company recognizes the fact that in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Viber is the most popular among subscribers.