Facebook Messenger without rival: plus 1.2 mln users per month

Facebook Messenger now has over 1.2 billion monthly active users, with the platform adding 200 million users in just eight months. 

The milestone, announced ahead of Facebook's annual conference for software developers next week by head of Messenger David Marcus, is key to Facebook's push to own more of people's time and wallets on mobile devices as the arms race with Google and other competitors escalates.

The Messenger app debuted in 2011 but didn't take off until 2014 when Facebook removed the messaging app from its main app. It hit 1 billion monthly active users in July, double the users it had in November 2014. It appears to be growing a bit more slowly, since it leaped to 1 billion users from 800 million in six months.

With Messenger and WhatsApp, which the company bought in 2014 in a deal valued at $22 billion, Facebook owns two of the largest chat apps. More than 1 billion people regularly use WhatsApp.
Ever since Messenger separated from Facebook, it has been evolving a lot with the addition of chat bots, payments, and even video calls. Recently, Facebook also introduced a Snapchat-like feature called Messenger Day. Facebook itself enjoys much higher engagement at 1.9 billion monthly active users, while Instagram is still growing with 600 million users.

Globally, the United States has most users with 219 million, while India in second place has 213 milion users, with both countries accounting for 22 percent of Facebook’s total users.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes Facebook's messaging apps will be key to driving the social media giant's success in coming years.