Facebook Messenger draws level with WhatsApp in race for monthly users
Facebook Messenger has drawn level-pegging with its sister service WhatsApp after enjoying rapid growth of 30% since July 2016, taking it to 1.3bn monthly users.
Facebook Messenger draws level with WhatsApp in race for monthly users
There are now 1.3B of you actively using Messenger every month. Thank you! We will continue to work hard to make our product better for you. pic.twitter.com/gjEgDXZfgg
— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) September 14, 2017
The psychologically important milestone reinforces Facebook’s dominance of the social landscape, coming just two months after WhatsApp proudly revealed that it too could count 1.3bn monthly users.
These numbers are important to Facebook as it seeks to diversify its income away from its news feed toward its burgeoning messaging services, amidst anticipation that ad sales growth will flatline over the second half of the year.
Facebook has already begun trialing Messenger ads, contributing to a 40% surge in its share price amidst expectations that 2017 sales could surge 42% from a year earlier.