In the US Hispanics use WhatsApp more than any other ethnic or racial group.

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in most countries—but it has yet to achieve the same heights of popularity in the US. Now a new report shows that there is one US group that's embraced the platform: people who identify as Hispanic.

Almost half (49%) of Hispanics use the app, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. That makes perfect sense, considering it's the dominant messaging platform in Latin America. The popularity of WhatsApp applies to US immigrant communities more broadly, who use it to communicate with family and friends in their home countries or elsewhere in the world. The immigrant-founded app rose to global ubiquity in part because of the low costs of communication compared to SMS or calls.

People use WhatsApp for everything from sharing news to doing business and conducting diplomacy.