At Facebook’s F8 developers conference this morning, the company shared some interesting metrics related to the traction and growth of its popular messaging applications, Messenger and WhatsApp. One especially notable figure CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled was that Facebook’s two messaging services, when combined, saw more activity on a daily basis than SMS (traditional texting). That is, Messenger and WhatsApp see 60 billion messages sent daily versus 20 billion for SMS.
The exec also noted that Messenger had grown to 900 million users, up from 700 million at last year’s conference. That means it’s catching up with WhatsApp, which hit the 1 billion users mark this February.
These figures were announced alongside other significant updates to Messenger’s platform, including support for “chatbots,” which are software utilities that work on top of Messenger to aid with things like customer service, e-commerce transactions, and other interactive experiences. Early partners include big names like 1-800-Flowers and CNN, as well as smaller startups like weather app Poncho or shopping app Spring.
For the time being, chatbots are limited to Messenger, while WhatsApp will remain focused on chat. You can read more about chatbots here.