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Same scenario in Mexico, people in the US didn't leave SMS as fast as us because they had unlimited SMS plans. A lot of people in our countries didn't have that option, we had to pay around 20 US cents per SMS that was just insane

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Same in Lebanon and several other countries in the middle east. 15 cents per SMS, now around 9 I believe. So people started using WhatsApp for all their messaging. When audio messages became a feature, people stopped using their phone service and switched to this annoying method of communication. Many people now default to WhatsApp calls for regular calls as well.

When I was there, my monthly bill was over $50 USD per month for very minimal usage of both data and calls. That's ridiculous...

The big telecom companies in Mexico like Telcel also don't charge you for WhatsApp data usage which showstops any potential competitors.

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