Facebook Messenger began in August 2011 as a new standalone messaging app that enabled people to send messages one-on-one or to groups of friends. Photo: Bloomberg
Facebook Inc. announced on
Wednesday that more than 1 billion people now use Facebook
Messenger
every month, making Messenger part of the coveted one billion user club
that includes only a handful of apps worldwide such
as the Facebook-owned WhatsApp, and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube.
The
company also shared some other impressive statistics about the
messaging
app. Messenger is the second most popular iOS app, the Android version
has been downloaded over 1 billion times, 17 billion photos are sent on
Messenger each month, 1 billion messages pass between people and
businesses, 380 million stickers and 22 million
GIFs are sent every day and the app now has a 10% global marketshare of
VOIP calls. “We feel a great sense of responsibility to continue
building really good product experiences for all of you in the months
and years and to come,” said head of
Messenger David Marcus on his Facebook page .
Hitting
the 1 billion user milestone is big even for Facebook as it makes the
company attractive for brands, businesses and developers to use
Messenger’s
platform.
Messenger
began in August 2011 as a new standalone messaging app that enabled
people to send messages one-on-one or to groups
of friends. In April 2014, Facebook announced that the messaging
feature will be removed from the main Facebook app and users will be
forced to download Messenger, something that did not go down too well
with the general public. Facebook’s argument was,
of course, that a dedicated app was better and faster to chat. Sitting
within the main interface, the chat experience tended to be slow and
sub-optimal.
By November 2014, Messenger had clocked up 500 million users.
Earlier in 2014, the company had bought rival messaging app WhatsApp,
thus ensuring both companies were within its fold.
But 2015 was the year that
Messenger actually catapulted itself as more than just a tool for
communication. The company added video calling that expanded Messenger’s
real-time communication features, enabling the
more than 600 million people in 2015 to reach others wherever they are,
from anywhere. Other functionalities like the ability to send money to
friends, the launch of the Messenger platform, the introduction of
Businesses on Messenger and a slew of chat bot
partnerships with developers now allow businesses to deliver automated
customer support, e-commerce guidance, content and interactive
experiences via Messenger.
As part of its business feature, Facebook launched Transportation
on Messenger in cooperation with Uber. In April 2016, Messenger
launched “Group Calling”, allowing users to add up to 50 participants
simultaneously over the internet. And
earlier this month, the social networking company announcedend-to-end
encryption as an optional feature for Facebook Messenger users.
With
these rapid advances, Facebook Messenger has evolved from a simple chat
app into a high-powered technological platform that enables businesses
and developers to interact with a billion users globally.
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