Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp Combined Produces More Messages Than SMS

At the on going Facebook F8 developers conference this morning, the company shared some interesting metrics related to the growth of its popular messaging applications; Messenger and WhatsApp. 

A special notable figure CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled was the two messaging services owned by Facebook, when combined, saw more activity on a daily basis than SMS (traditional texting). This implies; Messenger and WhatsApp see 60 billion messages sent daily as against 20 billion for SMS.

Zuckerberg 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. 

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