Key Signal Statistics – Is This Non-Profit App Here to Stay?

Why Trust Tech Report

Tech Report is one of the oldest hardware, news, and tech review sites on the internet. We write helpful technology guides, unbiased product reviews, and report on the latest tech and crypto news. We maintain editorial independence and consider content quality and factual accuracy to be non-negotiable.

In this guide, we’ll look at several fascinating Signal statistics, including its usage and how the organization is able to operate on donations. We’ll also study the technology at the heart of the popular messenger and consider future trends.

Signal, launched in 2010 by Whisper Systems, became an open-source app in 2013. Since 2018, The Signal Technology Foundation has been supporting the accessibility of private communication through donation-based funding rather than selling user data for profit.

Understandably, this level of transparency and dedication to privacy attracted a loyal base of users and donors. But is Signals’ non-profit model still feasible in 2024? Let’s take a closer look to find out.

Key Signal Statistics

Signal Users & Downloads Statistics

First, let’s observe Signal’s overall user and download statistics. As of 2022, Signal had 40 million active users, doubling the figure from 2021. In 2024, City Journal reports that the app has been downloaded by over 100 million users.

Although yearly downloads are down since the 2021 peak, it seems the app has maintained a slow, sustained growth over the past years, particularly in the EMEA.

Throughout 2020–2023, EMEA had, on average, twice the downloads of other regions, which suggests the app is particularly popular in Europe (and, to a smaller extent, the Middle East and Africa).

Let’s take a closer look at the regional differences in user numbers and downloads.

Signal Users by Region

Below is our breakdown of how Signal users and downloads are distributed worldwide.

Europe

The EMEA region has the highest concentration of Signal users, most of them being in Europe.

For example, the UK saw 250,000 Signal downloads in Q4 2023 alone and over 930,000 in the entire year. These would be additional users joining the app that year on top of those already using Signal for longer.

Signal’s brand awareness is also quite high in the UK—around 27% of respondents in a 1,179-person survey said they recognized the brand by name. In Germany, the brand awareness level is even higher, at 39%.

Signal has also been seeing decent growth around other parts of Europe, although it’s by no means as popular as giants like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

For instance, at the beginning of 2022, France had over 11,800 daily active Signal users—and this figure only includes iPad users. This made Signal the ninth most popular messaging app for iPad users in France.

However, the third leading social media app, WhatsApp, had over six times as many users as Messenger, which had over fifty times as many.

Also, in 2022, 4% of Swedes used Signal as a messaging platform, a level of popularity similar to Telegram’s. In Spain, Signal was downloaded 4.35 million times, surpassing apps like LINE and Viber.

The messenger also saw a significant increase in users and downloads in Ukraine and Russia in Q1 2022, most likely due to the geopolitical conflict. The daily active user (DAU) count grew 184% in Ukraine, and 81% in Russia.

The Americas

Signal isn’t as big in the Americas as it is in Europe. For instance, Signal’s level of brand awareness in the US is at 22% as of 2022 (based on a 1,108-person survey) – lower than in the UK. Moreover, only 4% of American messenger app users in the survey use Signal.

However, Signal is more widespread in other NALA countries. For instance, in 2023, 13% of smartphone owners in Brazil used Signal, 1% more than the previous year.

Throughout Q1–Q3 2023, the app was downloaded just under 500,00 times in Brazil and 342,000 times in Mexico.

As of Q3 of 2023, Argentina was the LATAM country with the fewest downloads that quarter – just over 32,000.

Signal Downloads

The peak of Signal downloads worldwide was during Q1 of 2021, when the most popular messenger, WhatsApp, released a controversial privacy update, requiring users to share their info with Facebook or delete WhatsApp.

Endorsements by privacy activist Edward Snowden and entrepreneur Elon Musk were also rumored to have fueled this surge. At that time, the messenger was downloaded 59.8 million times worldwide, including almost 35 million times in EMEA and 7 million in LATAM.

However, the market of messaging apps is saturated, with WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram being the main leaders.

It’s quite evident Signal’s popularity is slowing down; although its share grew to 14% in Q1 of 2021, it dropped to 4% as of Q2 2022 despite the aforementioned privacy concerns.

Signal Organization & Financial Statistics

In this section, we’ll look deeper into what sort of organization Signal is, how it finances itself, and the financial triumphs and challenges it encounters due to its non-profit structure.

Signal’s Organization Info

Headquartered in California, the Signal Technology Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit that runs Signal. It was launched in 2018 following an investment of $50 million from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton.

Acton and Moxie Marlinspike also co-founded Signal Management LLC, which is part of Signal Technology Foundation and is the main entity responsible for managing Signal’s app.

Brian Acton is the organization’s current CEO. Meredith Whittaker is the company’s president; she assumed the title in 2022 but has been on the board since 2020. The board also includes Katherine Maher, the CEO and President of NPR, Katherine Maher.

Signal’s Donations Statistics

Since it’s a non-profit organization that receives no revenue, the Signal Technology Foundation runs exclusively on donations.

According to Crunchbase, the $50 million obtained in 2018 is the foundation’s only Angel investment to date.

However, Signal’s predecessor, Open Whisper Systems, had obtained several grants from the Open Technology Fund, Shuttleworth Foundation, and the Knight Foundation throughout the years.

We can also notice a peak in donations after the 2021 surge in app downloads. According to Signal’s Form 990 tax filings to the IRS, the company received approximately $23.5 million in donations in the tax period ending December 2022.

As the infographic above shows, the total value of yearly donations more than doubled between 2021 and 2022.

What Are Signal’s Main Costs?

According to Signal, by 2025, the app will require approximately $50 million in donations per year to operate.

The biggest expenses are staffing costs, amounting to $19 million per year, followed by infrastructure, which requires $14 million a year. Here’s the full breakdown of some of the annual costs, as provided by Signal’s president Meredith Whittaker in November 2023:

Signal Technical Facts

Like many instant messaging apps, Signal allows users to send direct or group text messages, exchange images, videos, and voice notes, and make audio and video calls.

However, Signal is completely free, and its software is open-source. Moreover, Signal excels in privacy and security.

The application uses centralized servers, and all the communications within Signal are secured with E2E encryption. These privacy features and secure encryption make the key USP of Signal.

In addition, unlike many other IM apps, Signal doesn’t use ads, affiliate marketing, or trackers. Therefore, Signal doesn’t engage in data mining or create data lakes to be sod onto the advertisers.

Still, one of Signal’s main past criticisms was that it required users to have a phone number to use its services. In February 2024, Signal released a feature that seems to address this concern.

The new feature allows users to connect with people using a username, thus obscuring their number from new contacts and effectively patching up any remaining privacy concerns.

Future of Signal

Signal is a non-profit-run messenger app that relies on donations to keep itself going. In 2022, it received $23.5 million in donations.

Although this was a massive peak compared to previous years, it’s still less than 50% of what Signal allegedly needs to keep itself running, according to Meredith Whittaker.

So, does Signal have a future, and can it keep itself afloat? Let’s examine the possible trends impacting it.

Sustainable Financing

As we mentioned, Signal relies on donations and grants rather than selling user data. This financial model is in line with the organization’s mission of accessible private communication, but it also presents significant challenges for sustainable growth.

It’s unlikely that Signal will change its fundamental values and start selling user data, as it would lose a significant chunk of its privacy-conscious user base. Still, the app might need to find another way to maintain its services.

While Signal prides itself on being free for everyone, it may eventually have to offer paid services that provide additional value to its users without compromising their privacy.

Other funding sources could include crowdfunding initiatives or seeking contributions from privacy activists. Wherever the funding would come from, it’ll be important for Signal’s user base to be fully informed about its sources.

Privacy as a Priority

It’s no secret that Signal’s key audience is users who prioritize privacy as more people put privacy first. With more and more people becoming privacy-conscious today, Signal’s user count may very well increase significantly in the coming years.

Growing threats to privacy are fueling privacy consciousness at a larger scale. For that reason, we foresee Signal introducing more enhanced privacy features that go beyond messaging and calls.

Expanding it to include encrypted storage, encrypted emails, and anonymous browsing can attract a much wider user base. But as we described above, Signal needs sustainable financing to achieve these features.

Global Reach

While some countries have blocked Signal, the app’s commitment to privacy and security is driving its growth worldwide. We saw how popular it could be during its peak in Q1 of 2021 when it served as an alternative to WhatsApp and other messengers.

With more and more apps monetizing user data, and an increasing number of countries introducing anti-privacy laws, it’s very foreseeable that such a surge can happen again.

If one or two future Signal downloads surges like that, or even organic growth with more users becoming privacy-conscious, Signal is very well-positioned to claim a larger share of the IM market.

Is Signal Here to Stay?

Signal’s past and present have been shaped by its unwavering commitment to privacy and security. It goes without saying that its loyal user base will be expecting the same in the future, and the same goes for people who will join the platform in the coming years.

Indeed, in a world dominated by the data we generate daily, privacy is priceless. At the moment, Signal is one of the few viable alternatives to messaging services offered by private companies that are enabling user data monetization.

But as we’ve noticed in this guide, Signal needs more financial resources if it wants to continue functioning as it is and helping more people keep their communications private.

Sources