Facebook’s Messenger joins elite 1bn users club

Facebook Messenger has stormed into the elite billion plus users club joining the likes of Facebook, Whatsapp, and Google’s YouTube, adding more than 200 million users on board since January.

Messenger, that was originally launched as a re-skinned version of Beluga, a three-person chat app startup built by ex-Googlers that Facebook acquired in March 2011, has achieved this remarkable feat in much less time than what Whatsapp took for the same. (WhatsApp took 7 years to reach the 1 billion monthly active users mark this February)

Not just this, the app has racked up some other impressive stats too. Each month, 17 billion photos are sent and 1 billion messages pass between people and businesses, 380 million stickers and 22 million GIFs are sent each day and 10 percent of all VoIP calls go through Messenger. Messenger’s new platform now has 18,000 bots, and 23,000 developers have signed up for Facebook’s Wit.ai Bot Engine.

Messenger, is much more than just instant messaging. The platform offers voice calls, stickers, GIFs and even games to enjoy with friends and family. These services, Facebook says, are also performing extremely well.

The social networking giant recently started introducing games into the app. In March, the company released a basketball game within Messenger that has been played more than a billion times since. Last month, it followed that success with a soccer game, just in time for the Euro 2016 tournament.

“As part of this journey to 1 billion, we focused on creating the best possible experiences in modern day communications,” said Facebook’s vice president for Messenger, David Marcus. “We remain focused on helping connect people to the people and businesses who matter most.”

The company is also offering one little celebration for everyone to participate in. Send a balloon emoji on Facebook and you’ll see the screen light up to commemorate the announcement.