29 April 2021, 10:04 am Previously, Signal was promoted by Elon Musk, saying that this messaging app is better than WhatsApp. Because of this, it became more popular with iOS users, especially when its competitor application updated its data sharing policy. (Photo : Photo by Atsushi Tomura/Getty Images) A man uses his smartphone on July 16, 2014 in Tokyo, Japan. Only 53.5% of Japanese owned smartphones in March, according to a white paper released by the Ministry of Communications on July 15, 2014. The survey of a thousand participants each from Japan, the U.S., Britain, France, South Korea and Singapore, demonstrated that Japan had the fewest rate of the six.