Facebook has claimed that its two major chat apps are sending three times as many messages than SMS, with 60 billion messages a day sent and received on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
Speaking at its F8 conference, the company claimed 900 million people are now using Facebook Messenger service, along with 50 million businesses. WhatsApp has one billion plus monthly users, and even accounting for some overlap, Facebook’s user base covers significant proportion of the world’s population.
Facebook messaging chief David Marcus said Messenger is now the second most popular app on iOS, and was the fastest growing app in the US in 2015.
At last year’s F8, Messenger had 700 million users, signifying a huge growth in numbers in just 12 months.
The app has enjoyed a number of new functions and expansions given to Messenger as part of Facebook’s major investment in the service in recent months, including the ability to send money over the service.
Also revealed at F8 are new open APIs for Messenger, which will allow companies to build bots that can deliver personalised news stories or allow customers to order goods and services.
Businesses and developers will be able to provide anything from automated subscription content—such as weather and traffic updates, to customised communications like receipts, shipping notifications, and live automated messages—directly to the specific customers they want to target.
Facebook is also implementing a new suite of controls and policies to prevent unwanted messages and any potential rise in spam.
The company says that these will allow users to mute and block communications that they don’t want to receive, and include strict policies for developers and businesses to uphold and we will have review processes to ensure we carefully evaluate how our community is responding.
Users are able to sign up to try six Messenger bots today, with Facebook saying that many more will be coming soon.