This data shows how much WhatsApp’s privacy issues have affected Facebook

According to the reports, Facebook will launch its controversial WhatsApp privacy policy update on Saturday. WhatsApp users must agree to the new policy in order to continue to use this chat application fully. If you do not agree to the new terms of service, Facebook will not delete the app but will phase out WhatsApp’s text messaging and phone features in the future. Inactivity due to the inability to use the app may eventually lead to account termination.

Facebook may not cancel its plan to update WhatsApp’s privacy policy-the plan will allow the company to collect more user data from WhatsApp’s internal e-commerce functions, but the company’s WhatsApp privacy nightmare has not completely ended. Recently, a German regulatory agency has issued a ban that will prohibit Facebook from processing user data from WhatsApp. German regulators urge European counterparts to take similar actions.

In addition to regulation, Facebook has another serious problem caused by itself. The changes in WhatsApp’s privacy protection have sparked renewed interest in competing WhatsApp chat applications, and millions of people have downloaded Signal and Telegram. A new report shows how much impact this issue has on Facebook.

For many people, leaving a popular platform like WhatsApp is almost impossible. WhatsApp is suitable for iPhone and Android platforms and provides the same end-to-end encryption protection as iMessage and Signal. Telegram also supports end-to-end encryption, but not all sessions are opened by default.

Abandoning WhatsApp and using other chat services may mean abandoning friends and family who are reluctant to use new applications or find it difficult to adapt to different chat environments. Despite this, millions of people are still looking for other options – especially in early 2021, when WhatsApp prompts started telling them that Facebook will collect more user data. SensorTower’s actual data obtained by analyzing app downloads on the App Store and Google Play shows the impact of changes in WhatsApp’s privacy policy on Facebook.

In January, the number of downloads of Telegram and Signal apps surged. Among them, Telegram installed 63.5 million, an increase of 283% over January 2020. After that, the download of this app has begun to normalize. In April this year, Telegram installed 26.2 million, a decrease of 3% over the same period last year.

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Signal’s growth is even more impressive, with the app’s registrations skyrocketing by 5,001% in January, and 50.6 million app installs worldwide —Signal had 992,000 downloads in January 2020. In the next few months, just as Facebook explained the WhatsApp privacy update and extended the deadline to accept the update to May 15, downloads of WhatsApp dropped sharply. Even so, in April this year, Signal has been experiencing sustained year-on-year growth. Last month, Signal’s global downloads were 2.8 million, more than double the 1.3 million in April 2020.

In addition, the report also provides download data of WhatsApp. It can be seen that WhatsApp has already seen a decline in its installation volume even before reminding users of the change in privacy plan. As more and more people began to spend more time at home, the number of installations of this app began to decline when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

As of April 2020, the app had 55.2 million installations worldwide, compared with 76.5 million installations in May. The number of WhatsApp installations fell to 45 million in January, 43 million in February, and a slight rebound in March.

These numbers prove what people have known since January. WhatsApp is the most important chat application in the world, and it may not be possible for many people to completely abandon it. But most iPhone and Android users experience a multi-chat world, and different chat applications are used for different groups of people.

The chart above shows that millions of people are paying attention to Facebook’s handling of their privacy. In the long run, the company’s actions may persuade millions of people to choose Signal, Telegram and other apps instead of WhatsApp.

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