As its parent company continues to dominate the social media landscape, Facebook's dedicated messaging app, Facebook Messenger, announced a pretty significant milestone on Thursday, stating that the service now boasts 900 million users. Such a wide user base is a major milestone for Messenger which started as an offshoot to the main Facebook app that some users were initially hesitant to use.
What makes the number even more significant is the fact that 100 million new users were added during the past few months. In January, Messenger only had a user base of about 800 million. According to the firm, about a billion messages are sent and received by users of the app every month.
With its impressive figures, Facebook Messenger has set its sights on a bigger prize - business enterprises. Adopting a strategy from prominent Chinese messaging app WeChat, Facebook Messenger is expanding its range of services.
Notably, Tencent-owned WeChat became such a prominent service in Asia due to its wide suite of features, such as the ability to purchase items, order rides and transfer funds. All these transactions are done without the user having to leave the app, making it a very convenient one-stop shop for various tasks.
Such is the model that Facebook Messenger is attempting to adopt right now. Just like its Asian counterpart, Messenger is set to provide features such as online shopping, airline reservations, Uber requests and restaurant bookings. Of course, with the new suite of features, users would enjoy the convenience of doing various tasks on one application.
Together with the planned upgrade to Messenger, Facebook for Business is also launching a set of useful tools that would help Facebook's more than 1 billion users interact with businesses using Facebook Messenger. One of these tools gives businesses unique Messenger Links, which act like short URLs, allowing customers to instantly start a conversation with the enterprise through the app.
Another notable enterprise-related feature, called Messenger Greetings, acts a lot like a personalized spiel in written form. Once a Facebook user initiates a conversation with a business, the enterprise's Facebook Messenger would automatically start the conversation with a unique statement. Doing so helps businesses set the tone for conversations while strengthening their brand.
With 900 million users and counting, Facebook Messenger has definitely grown into an app that if formidable on its own.
