That's not true, it may be true for some parts of Europe, but other countries had free or extremely cheap SMS before WhatsApp even existed.
Depending on where you are in Europe SMS may still be vastly more popular than WhatsApp. It also depends on the audience. Most of my family still use SMS. Technically it's iMessage but they don't know the difference, and they certainly don't care how messages are transferred. The build in messaging app is what is used.
Personally I've seen WhatApp installed only by people who have a large number of friends in eastern European countries.
Edit: Just to be clear, Denmark have had the one of the most competitive markets for cellular in the world for the past 20 years. Prices have been driven ever downwards for the last 15 year. So calls and sms have almost always been cheap.
That's not true, it may be true for some parts of Europe, but other countries had free or extremely cheap SMS before WhatsApp even existed.
Depending on where you are in Europe SMS may still be vastly more popular than WhatsApp. It also depends on the audience. Most of my family still use SMS. Technically it's iMessage but they don't know the difference, and they certainly don't care how messages are transferred. The build in messaging app is what is used.
Personally I've seen WhatApp installed only by people who have a large number of friends in eastern European countries.
Edit: Just to be clear, Denmark have had the one of the most competitive markets for cellular in the world for the past 20 years. Prices have been driven ever downwards for the last 15 year. So calls and sms have almost always been cheap.