Facebook Messenger hits a billion

People in nearly every country of the world use Facebook’s Messenger application every day to connect with their friends, family and businesses.

They use this platform to make arrangements, share content, send payments, tell jokes, play games, let their loved ones know they’re thinking about them, and more.

Recently, the online networking giant Facebook announced a hike in its number of users on the Messenger application to one billion per month, which marks a key milestone as it seeks to expand the platform to new services.

This number has more than doubled in the past year. Facebook is now marking the occasion with a new balloon feature that will add animations to messages when you use the balloon emoji. The company also revealed new statistics about how people are using the app.

As per the unveiled statistics, Facebook users exchange more than 17 billion photos every month, and more than 22 million animated GIFs in a single day.

Business communication on Messenger is also up, with more than a billion messages between users and companies every month.

The growth in Messenger gives greater reach to Facebook, which is moving to create a family of applications beyond the social network.

At the moment Facebook’s Messenger app is the second most popular iOS application ever, after Facebook.