Facebook Messenger achieves milestone, now has more than 1 billion users monthly
Wikimedia Commons/Zuzi461 Zuzi461, Creative Commons

Facebook Messenger has achieved a milestone this July, now has more than one billion monthly users.

The social networking company said in a news release that they are grateful to “all the people who are sending billions of messages every day.” Facebook also said that with this milestone, Facebook Messenger is now “one of only a handful of apps worldwide that touch so many lives.”

“People use Messenger to connect with the people and businesses they care most about,” the company said. “They make plans, share dreams, send payments, tell jokes, play games, let their loved ones know they’re thinking of them and much, much more.”

To celebrate the milestone, Facebook created a short video to thank the users and highlighting some of the things that users do on Messenger. The social networking company is also encouraging its users to send balloon emoji in their messages to join in the celebration.

The Verge reports that Facebook Messenger has had a great 2016 so far. Facebook’s messaging app has been gaining around 100 million active users every three months, with the company reporting 800 million monthly users in January and 900 million monthly users in April.

Facebook Messenger also became the second most popular iOS app and has been downloaded over one billion times on Android. The messaging app has also sent one billion messages between people and businesses every month.

Facebook Messenger chief David Marcus said in a Facebook post that he is humbled to be serving one billion people every month. He thanked everyone who depends on Messenger for communicating and staying in touch with “the people who matter most” to them.

With this milestone, Marcus feels that he and his team has a “great sense of responsibility” to continue providing a really good product experience for all their users in the months and years to come.