70% of people in Spain with mobile use WhatsApp

7 in 10 people in Spain and use WhatsApp on a regular basis, according to a study published by PwC. He becomes the fourth country with the highest penetration of the service now owned by Facebook.

Spain is the European country that uses WhatsApp and the fourth in the world, cementing the dominance of instant messaging service in the country. In fact 70% of Spaniards who have a wireless use it regularly according to a report by consultancy Strategy & belonging to PwC.

From a global point of view, Spain is just behind South Africa, which has 78% of penetration-, Singapore, with 72 % – and Hong Kong, with 71% -. At the European level is well above the rest of countries: the second country after Spain’s Italy 62%, the third is Holland 61% and the fourth is Germany 57%.

The enormous growth of WhatsApp in Spain is directly proportional to the sudden drop of SMS in the country. In 2010, the 90% of text messages that were sent from mobile devices were SMS. Four years later is only 25%, a trend that continues and continue downward

The VoIP service WhatsApp. Real threat to the operators

With 70% market share, with a service that is already part of the popular culture of Spain and usually with a positive image in society, the service VoIP WhatsApp plans to launch is a real threat to mobile operators and probably be extremely nervous.

In fact the study of Strategy & indicates that telephone operators Spanish have lost between 30 and 40% of their income in recent years, but especially: although it is an effect that was felt throughout Europe, has been lesser extent. The launch of a voice communication service could be mortal for some operators and mean even greater losses in the medium or long term should be really popular.

Just yesterday César Alierta ​​strong>, President of Phone, re-emphasized the need to amend the legislation so that services OTT start being part of the regulation of telecommunications. While it is true that part of speech comes from the possibility that operators try to charge more to those who offer these services, it becomes necessary services dominance in the market as large as WhatsApp meet certain regulatory guidelines to protect consumers, especially in terms of Privacy and protection of personal data ​​strong>.

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