Over 1.3 billion people around the world are now using Facebook Messenger every month, the company said. The Messenger crossed the one billion monthly active users (MAUs) mark in July 2016. “We’ve continued working hard to make Messenger the best it can be, introducing new masks, filters and reactions for video chat, making our virtual personal assistant available in more places around the world,” Facebook said.
The increase in Messenger users puts the app at par with Facebook-owned WhatsApp that also has 1.3 billion MAUs. This happened after Messenger and WhatsApp both have taken concrete steps towards monetization.
“We have rolled out ‘Instant Games’ more broadly and bringing ‘Messenger Lite’ to more countries. We also redesigned the Inbox so that all of your favourite features are front and centre making it easier to connect,” the Messenger post read.
Facebook-owned Instagram has around 700 million monthly users. Its rival Snapchat has only about 166 million active users. “We are very grateful to each and every one of you in the Messenger community for Messenger to reach the people and businesses you care most about,” Facebook added.
