Facebook may be the giant among social networks but WhatsApp has taken the lead in social messaging on mobile.

Analyst group On Device has researched messaging usage in five countries (US, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and China and found WhatsApp being used by 44% of smartphone users, and Facebook by just 35%.

The firm surveyed 3,759 smartphone owners in the five countries to get a global snapshot of popularity of particular apps, and also how they use social messaging compared to calling, texting and emailing on their phones. The research is here.

“Social messaging apps and platforms are some of the hottest movers in the mobile space at the moment,” said On Device analayst Slim Teller.

“Not a week goes by without one of the big ones – WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, BBM – announcing new record breaking registered user numbers, opening up their platform to brands, billions of photos shared daily etc.”

The analysis found that WhatsApp is the new combined leader in these markets, while Facebook still rules on its home turf in the US. 44% of all respondents who use social messaging (and very few do not use it) do it on WhatsApp ,versus 35% on Facebook Messenger.

But there is significant geographical difference. “Good examples of this are the surprising popularity of BBM in South Africa and Indonesia. Both countries saw high penetration of BlackBerry phones in the past but as users upgraded to newer and cheaper Android phones BBM's position seemed to be shaky,” said Teller.

“The release of BBM as a standalone app on iOS and Android seems to have been a winning move as barely a month after the release 34% in South Africa and 37% in Indonesia are back using the original BBM chat app.

WeChat is another regional winner. It's massive penetration in China (93% of smartphone owners using it) means that usage has bubbled out into other countries. In Indonesia 20% use it on a weekly basis, in South Africa 18%, and even in the US WeChat has 6% penetration.

Teller said chat apps are now the dominant way of staying in touch by smartphone. “Daily usage of social messaging across the five countries stands at a massive 86%. That compares to 73% using their phones for voice calls, 75% using SMS and 60% using email.

“This trend will have interesting implications on mobile operators. More and more people are upgrading from feature phones to smartphones accelerating the move from traditional calling and SMS to social messaging. It's interesting to note that China seems to be an outlier when it comes to email usage with ‘only’ 40% of smartphone owners using email compared to 69% in the US.”

Data collection took place between 25 October and 10 November, 2013. On Device says it has now surveyed over 12 million mobile subscribers in 58 countries.