Facebook Messenger now has one billion users
Facebook has passed a seriously big milestone with Messenger, surpassing one billion users.
The chat app launched in 2014 and had already hit 800m users in January this year. That means it signed up 200m in around seven months.
"There's a lot more to do — and a lot more coming soon — but this is another step on the journey to connect the world," said Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg.
The one billion mark means Messenger now has roughly the same number of users as WhatsApp, the app that popularised messaging and which is also owned by Facebook. WhatsApp passed the milestone in February.
Head of messenger David Marcus said (where else, but a Facebook post): "Thanks to all of you, who have come to depend on our product to communicate and stay in touch with the people who matter the most to you. 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."
The company plans to expand both of the messaging services by integrating business communications, such as customer services.
A major part of that is chatbots, which were unveiled by Zuckerberg at its F8 developer conference earlier this year.