I think he belongs in the pantheon of eminent philosophers.
But going by the criteria in your thread title, 'most popular', I'm looking at it strictly from a head count perspective. There are two and a half billion people in East and South Asia, compared to 200 million in western Europe and 300 million in North America.
I would tend to assume the top five most popular or well known philosophers on a head count basis are all Asian: I would submit Gandhi, Confucius, Laozi, Mencius, and Zhuangzi as nominees.
