do you have any data to dispute it?
This is not really how argumentation works, is it?

If you make a sweeping statement, you have to back it up. THEN sombody can refute it (or agree).
my point is true popularity is impossible to measure. tv ratings is only one aspect. how can you measure world-wide participation with any accuracy?
It is certainly difficult. Tv ratings as you've mentioned, registered players for the various associations in different countries, scientific research via polling, social media following, and so on. And I definitely agree with you and
@Yoji that there is a western bias in both measuring and assessing a sport's popularity. Heck, basically all popular sports these days - including badminton - have western roots.
Rankings like these
http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/worldfame100/espn-world-fame-100-top-ranking-athletes#
are of course flawed to the max. They measure popularity by social media following (all American: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and Google search (American as well) and have Phil ****ing Mickelson as the 5th most popular athlete in the world.
What does absolutely nothing to convince me, however, is just to go by a countries population to arrive at popularity. Just because China and India have many inhabitants and badminton is played there, the sport isn't automatically popular. I'd venture to say badminton
isn't the most popular sport in both these countries by a long shot.
If it were, it would have huge domestic leagues that draw thousands of spectators each match and generate widespread tv coverage and thus: money. As far as I know, India is the only country where this is even remotely the case and they're still miles off sports like cricket.
no doubt tennis has more $, but so does practically all other sports... because they have many major corporations giving millions of dollars.
consider golf. definitely not one of the world's most popular, but one of the world's richest. why is that? rich and generous sponsors.
The problem is, corporations are not "generous". They're soulless entities with the sole purpose of making money and increasing their turnout over time. If they fork out the money for sponsorship, they expect to get it back with interest later, through increased market share, exposure, you name it. Yonex does not sponsor all the tournaments because they are nice people, but because they want to sell their stuff. Badminton in terms of revenue is worth next to nothing compared to other sports. And this is not a west-east thing. India and China have major corporations that could easily sponsor badminton to a much greater extent, but they don't; and there's a reason for that.
I'd like for badminton to be more popular and for the athletes, who I think are among the best in the world (so much is required: speed, stamina, technique, intelligence, creativity, reactions), to be globally recognized, but I think the sport just isn't there yet. Even some of the major tournaments in Asia fail to sell out the venues (did you see Korea Open this year) and that's lamentable.