It’s probably true that not many people use the IM portion of iMessage in the EU. In my experience, I’ve never actually seen anyone use it.
That being said, since it’s the default SMS app, you can’t convince me that most iPhone users don’t use it al least once a month (even if just to get a one time code from the bank). It’s definitely more than 45 million users, at least for the SMS part of the app.
Eh, I don’t know that iMessage is actually enabled by default within the Messages app, but if it is then it is very easy to disable.
Because it wasn’t super clear what it was when it first appeared or what the advantages of it were, I rejected it immediately, have kept it disabled ever since, and just use regular SMS or Signal.
I’m not trying to defend Apple, but arguably that’s an entirely different system that just happens to be packed into the same UI. It’s deeply integrated which I find worrying, but doesn’t really mean that if I get a SMS text for security verification that I’m “using iMessage” in any real sense.
