Samsung's ChatON reaches 100 million user mark

Even while the world is still waiting on BlackBerry to release its Messenger for Android and iOS devices, Samsung’s cross-platform messaging application has silently crossed the 100 million registered users mark.

Samsung has announced today that ChatON, its messenger application now has a global base of over 100 million users with 50 million subscribers signing up in the past four months alone. The service was launched in October 2011 and slowly accrued 50 million users in a year-and-a-half.

Now has 100 million users

ChatON, quite like other cross-platform messaging applications, is available for free on Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phone devices. Since it is Samsung’s own application, it comes pre-loaded on “most major” devices by the company. Devices like Samsung Galaxy S4 and Note 3 have ChatON pre-loaded on it. Devices like the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch and Samsung Galaxy Camera too have ChatON on them. The service allows you to sign-in to it from up to five different devices using one Samsung account ID, a great feature that has played a role in the app being adopted by users in the recent past.

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Samsung attributes ChatON’s steady growth to the app’s adoption in countries like India, China and the US and the fact that it was gaining popularity in markets like Europe and the Middle East. The app currently supports 63 languages and is available in 237 different countries currently.

It’s no secret that the cross-platform messaging market is bursting at the seams with the likes of WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat et al. With WhatsApp serving 300 million monthly active users and WeChat serving 236 million as well, ChatON, being a relatively newer platform, still has an uphill task to be able to grab hold of more users, despite some really unique features.