The only large group of people who still primarily use SMS to communicate person-to-person is Android users in the USA.
Every other country has settled on either Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp or FB Messenger, or other niche apps. These apps work on both iOS and Android and often also Windows. I haven't sent an SMS in probably 12 years. I don't know anyone who has.
It's only in the US that iMessage is so prevalent that Android users have to use SMS, the only other way of messaging iOS devices. And the US is quickly becoming a de-facto iOS only country. It already has more than 50% market share, even 80% among young people.
With the US going (almost) full iMessage and the rest of the world having already settled on another app there simply no point to supporting SMS.
There's a lot of people here claiming that their personal use is representative of their country, or of Europe as a whole. I get SMS from a lot of people. You don't, probably because a lot of the people you know are on Facebook/Whatsapp and it's more convenient for them to stay with that platform. That doesn't mean that they don't use SMS for anyone else. It just means that you are bubbled.