Most Popular Instant Messengers 1995 - 2025

Remember the iconic sounds of AIM, the blinking flower of ICQ, or meticulously crafting your MSN Messenger away message? 💬 Join us on a trip down memory lane as we explore the fascinating history of instant messengers! From the pioneering days of simple text chat to the feature-packed super-apps like WhatsApp, WeChat, and Telegram that connect billions today, we'll uncover the rise (and sometimes fall) of the platforms that revolutionized how we communicate. What was your first IM? Let us know in the comments!

In this data visualization video I look at the most popular instant messaging apps based on monthly active users. It includes the first graphical instant messaging app, PowWow. It was far ahead of its time but did not gain much traction.

I know there are many more apps but their numbers were either missing, completely off or not high enough to include in the list. Here are the ones I included:

1995
PowWow
First Graphical Standalone IM Client
First with VoIP, whiteboard, text-to-speech, surf together, audio player

1996
ICQ
First widely adopted IM client

1997
AIM
Initially integrated into AOL Desktop

1998
Yahoo! Messenger

1999
QQ
Popular in China

1999
MSN Messenger
AKA Windows Live Messenger

2000
Battle.net
Provided instant messaging for gamers

2003
Skype
Focused on video-chat

2005
Google Talk

2005
Blackberry Messenger

2009
WhatsApp
Developed by former Yahoo employees

2009
Kik Messenger
Reached 40% of US teens by 2016

2010
Viber

2011
WeChat

2011
iMessage

2011
SnapChat


2012
LINE

2012
Hike Messenger

2013
Telegram

2013
Facebook Messenger

Thank you for Watching

#InstantMessenger #TechHistory