Hey, marketers! Ready for some numbers? Hold on for a heavy dose of Facebook Messenger statistics.
We’ve rallied up some eye-popping Messenger chat stats, not just for thrills, but because they paint a picture of the future of digital marketing. This list includes stats on WhatsApp and Instagram as well.
Even if you forget all of the Facebook Messenger statistics in this article, you’ll walk away with a profound understanding of three important pieces of knowledge:
- Facebook Messenger is enormous. Ignore it at your peril.
- Facebook Messenger is expanding radically in reach and functionality.
- Connecting with the Messenger audience at scale requires a radically new marketing approach.
Here we go, in Q&A format — 27 Facebook Messenger statistics (updated May 2021).
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Q: How many monthly active users are there on Facebook Messenger?
A: 1.3 billion people use Facebook Messenger each month.
There are 1.3 billion active monthly users of Facebook Messenger, as of November 2020.
This number counts individual people, not just active accounts. One person may have multiple accounts, so the actual number of Facebook Messenger active users is much higher. Facebook has not disclosed the number of active accounts.
In comparison, Facebook has over 2 billion daily active users. It’s likely that the number of Messenger users will outpace the number of Facebook users, as universal social trends favor messaging over against broadcasting. (Source)
Q: What’s the most downloaded app of all time?
A: Facebook is number one. Followed by Facebook Messenger, number two.
These are some Facebook Messenger statistics that put the chat messaging landscape into perspective. Clearly, Facebook Messenger is a big deal when it comes to total downloads. But take a look at what else is in the top five most-downloaded apps of all time.
- Facebook Messenger
- Snapchat
Yes, that’s right. Facebook owns four of the top five most-downloaded apps in the history of the world. And, as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook messaging apps are integrated, Facebook Messenger will dominate the chat app market share. (Source)
Q: How fast is Facebook Messenger growing?
A: Messenger is adding users at a rate of 666,666 per day.
Sorry, numerologists, that number is real, albeit a sinister average. But it’s also clear that Messenger is growing at significantly high rate. (Source)
Q: How popular, really, are Facebook’s messaging apps?
A: 85% of mobile messaging app users in the world use a Facebook messaging product.
There are 1.82 billion mobile phone messaging app users worldwide. Of this number more than 1.6 billion use WhatsApp and 1.3 billion use Messenger. These numbers indicate the near-universal usage of Facebook messaging apps among messaging app users.
Oh, and the number is skyrocketing. By 2021, the number is expected to reach nearly 2.5 billion! (Source and Source)
Q: What is the biggest messaging app in the U.S.?
A: Facebook Messenger is the leading messaging app in the United States.
Messenger dwarfs Snapchat’s user base (48.67 million) and is more popular in the United States than WhatsApp, which has 18.24 million users. (Source)
Q: How active are Facebook Messenger users?
A: Facebook Messenger users send 8 billion messages a day.
Messenger’s users aren’t lazy when it comes to messaging. Their output is prolific, and that number of sent messages — 8 billion a day — is climbing. Sore thumbs, anyone? (Source)
Q: How does Facebook Messenger rank against other messaging apps?
A: Facebook Messenger has 116% more monthly active users in the United States than the nearest competitor, Snapchat.
To see the scale of its popularity, check out a comparative look at the top mobile messaging apps by monthly active users. Messenger outpaces the runner up by more than double. (Source)
Q: What about kids? Are they Messenger users?
A: There are 1.4 million Messenger Kids users.
Although it’s not monetized, Facebook does have a strong hold on a user demographic below the age of 13. Today’s minors are heavy users of mobile messaging, which can be a handy way for parents and kids to stay connected. (The 1.4 million Messenger Kids users are not included in the number of Messenger app users. Messenger Kids requires an entirely different app.)
Q: What percentage of the world’s population are regular Messenger users?
A: 11% of the world’s population use Facebook Messenger every month.
That’s pretty amazing when you think about it. (Source)
Q: What about Messenger conversations and new connections?
A: Every day, there are 260 million new conversations launched over Messenger.
This number includes messages that are started between businesses and individuals. We expect this number to grow as more businesses wise up to the marketing power of adding a Messenger chatbot to their website.
Q: How many photos are Messenger users sharing?
A: 17 billion photos are sent every month on Facebook Messenger.
That’s a lot of photos. Even though Messenger isn’t a photo-specific app, its user base is diehard photographers. By comparison, Instagram users share 2.8 billion photos per month. As it turns out, Messenger is a more popular photo-sharing app than the original photo-sharing app itself. (Source)
Q: How many active bots are in use on Messenger?
A: There are only 300,000 chatbots in use on Facebook Messenger.
When compared to the other mind-boggling numbers in this statistic list, that number is jaw-droppingly low. Messenger bots are marketers’ biggest opportunity, but its most underutilized asset. (Source)
Q: How many developers interact with Facebook Messenger?
A: 200,000 developers have used the Messenger platform.
Two-hundred thousand chatbot developers is a lot, but that includes legions of individual developers working on solo projects, tinkering on the platform, or simply experimenting. The number of actual chatbot developers selling products to marketers is startlingly low. As time goes on, however, even this number will likely thin out as some larger bot developers acquire smaller ones, some fold, and others evolve. (Source)
Q: How many people overall use a Facebook product?
A: 2.5 billion people use at least one of Facebook’s apps.
These apps include Instagram, Whatsapp, and Messenger. All three of these with the exception of the Facebook app are messaging apps or have built-in messaging functionality. The three that do utilize messaging — Whatsapp, Instagram, and Messenger — are merging into a single messaging platform. (Source)
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Q: How does Facebook Messenger’s user acquisition rate compare with Facebook’s user acquisition rate?
A: Facebook user acquisition is at the lowest rate since 2015, but its messaging app user acquisition is higher than ever.
Facebook, the social media app, is experiencing a shrinking user count and its lowest growth rate in years. In spite of this, its messaging apps are on the rise. Facebook’s recent major shuffle indicates that the company is pushing the now-popular messaging apps in hopes to lift revenue. Historically, Facebook makes most of its money from the Facebook app, not the messaging apps. That might be about to change. (Source)
Q: What about Instagram? How big is its user base?
A: 1 billion people use Instagram.
Latest statistics (from June 2018) show that Instagram has topped 1 billion monthly active users. This statistic indicates the sheer number of people who are, by default, users or owners of Instagram’s powerful messaging feature, which will be merged with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger in 2019-20. (Source)
There are more people using messaging apps than social media now. The tipping point occurred a long time ago (digitally speaking), indicating an overall shift in user appetite for real-time interactive conversations as opposed to the News Feed style broadcasting method of earlier years. (Source)
Q: What percentage of businesses are using chatbot Marketing?
A: Only 1% of businesses automatically engage with their customers via chatbot messaging.
Even though messaging apps are wildly popular, businesses are not taking advantage of it. A paltry 1 out of every 100 businesses is engaging their customers automatically or with chatbots.
Note, however, that this statistic is just businesses that use chatbot messaging of any kind. There are 40 million monthly active businesses using Facebook Messenger.
Learn more about how to use Facebook Messenger for business.
Q: What kind of engagement rates do businesses have using Messenger marketing?
A: Facebook Messenger marketing has 10-80 times better engagement than email.
Email has 5-10% open rates and a 1% clickthrough rate. This amounts to 1 clickthrough per 1,000 emails. Messenger, by contrast, averages 70-80% open rates and 20% clickthrough rates.
Q: What about the comparison between Facebook News Feed engagement and Messenger engagement?
A: Facebook Messenger marketing has 10-80x better engagement than organic posts on the Facebook News Feed.
Facebook’s News Feed is essentially dead. Marketers have extremely low visibility and engagement rates when using organic posts. Organic posts get 0-2% visibility and, at most, a 2% clickthrough rate. Messenger’s 80% open rates and 20% clickthrough rates make the News Feed seem appallingly useless.
Q: What kind of success are marketers having with Messenger ads?
A: Send to Messenger Facebook ads have the equivalent of a 100% conversion rate.
When you use a click-to-Messenger ad, everyone who clicks through to “Send Message” and accepts the invite is an automatic lead on Facebook Messenger. This amounts to a 100% conversion rate for a contact list goal completion. The leads you acquire are leads for life, meaning that you retain them in your contact list until they make the conscious and concerted effort to unsubscribe from your list. (Source)
Q: Are Messenger ads less expensive than conventional Facebook display ads?
A: Yes. Facebook Messenger Ads can reduce cost per lead by 30x-50x.
Advertisers that use Facebook tools are used to high-cost spending for most ad campaigns. Conventional ads are crowded with competitors, driving bids sky-high. Click-to-Messenger ads, by contrast, have comparatively low costs, which means lower overall customer acquisition costs as well. (Source)
Q: How many users does WhatsApp have?
A: 1.5 billion people use WhatsApp.
WhatsApp has widespread global adoption than Facebook Messenger, which is one of the reasons why it has such a large user base. WhatsApp has features that allow it to function more like a social media app than just a messaging app.
Q: How active are WhatsApp users?
A: 1 billion people user WhatsApp on a daily basis.
WhatsApp has proved itself by the sheer number of daily users. More than 65% of users are active every day. (Source)
Q: What role does Customers.ai play in the growth of Facebook Messenger and Facebook Messenger marketing?
A: Customers.ai is Facebook’s fastest-growing official Messenger platform provider partner.
As of 2019, Customers.ai was recognized by Facebook as the fastest-growing official Messenger platform provider partner. As discussed above, there are hundreds of thousands of developers who are working on Facebook Messenger features, chatbots, and functionality.
Due to Customers.ai’s powerful chatbot builder, it has emerged as the front-runner. Thousands of marketers are recognizing the huge value of Facebook Messenger marketing and are turning to apps like Customers.ai to create powerful chatbots sequences, drip campaigns, and chat blasts that work in Facebook Messenger — as well as SMS and native web chat.
You read that right. Customers.ai is the fastest-growing Facebook Messenger Marketing platform AND multi-channel chat marketing platform for SMS and native web chat (logged-out users). OmniChat is Customers.ai’s patent-pending technology that translates chat marketing campaigns into all the most popular messaging apps customers are already using!
Q: What about Facebook Messenger tools? Who’s in that game?
A: Customers.ai has been rated the best Facebook Messenger tool.
There are quite a few contenders for that position. As Messenger expands, so are the number of agencies, developers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs who are involved in utilizing it and helping others utilize it. To date, Customers.ai has the highest-ranked Facebook Messenger tool.
One of the reasons for Customers.ai’s meteoric ratings in this new field is because we excel at serving agencies. Our chatbot builder is ideally suited to solo marketers but is just as well suited to small, medium, or large agencies that sell Facebook Messenger chatbot services to their clients.
Q: What kind of conferences are available for Facebook Messenger marketing?
A: Customers.ai hosts the world’s largest Facebook Messenger marketing conference.
The conference scene is full of growth hacks, techniques, and other topics, but Customers.ai was early to recognize the potential for a conference devoted to Facebook Messenger marketing. This conference is now a recurring event and the largest of its kind. The most recent marketing conference had an attendance that exceeded 15,000.
Customers.ai hosts 3 to 6 virtual conferences each year inviting speakers to share expertise on themes that range from marketing agency growth to Instagram and Facebook Ad strategies to the future of digital marketing.
The speakers, topics, and focus will give marketers, freelancers and marketing agencies the information and tools that they need to land massive clients, get higher retainer fees, and irresistible products to their clients.
Q: While Facebook Messenger may be a powerful growth marketing channel, what can I do to automatically chat with leads and customers that may not have Messenger?
A: OmniChat™️ by Customers.ai means every chat marketing automation works in Messenger and native web chat and SMS at the same time.
You’re not going bananas. Customers.ai chat marketing software translates every chat marketing campaign — from chat blast to Q&A bot to chat drip campaign to chatbot integration and more — to work in multiple messaging apps.
Chat with customers in the messaging apps they already use. You only create the conversation flow once and Customers.ai will translate it to work for your leads and customers wherever they’d prefer to message — SMS text messaging, visiting your website (native web chat), and via Facebook Messenger.
OmniChat gives marketers the powerful ability to create Facebook Messenger marketing campaigns as well as the flexibility and efficiency for those campaigns to work in many messaging apps.
Nice Facebook Messenger Statistics! What now?
It’s clear that Facebook Messenger is a dominate force that’s only growing. These Facebook Messenger statistics should give you a sense of the magnitude and potential that Messenger offers to marketers.
It’s cliche to refer to the ever-changing world of digital marketing, but it is important to recognize that we’re in a new phase of the game. Things have changed.
Bullhorn-style tactics are passé.
Instantaneous, interactive chatting is the new black.
Facebook Messenger marketing is the hottest new channel to emerge in years. And the time to start building chatbots is now.
Join Today’s Webinar with Larry Kim!
Or Register for the Free Replay
Learn all about NEW 100% Meta-Approved Automation Tools from Customers.ai with a spotlight on features to 10X Instagram & Facebook Engagement and turn social media into a revenue driver for your business.
Facebook Messenger Statistics: Important Next Steps
If you learned a lot from these Facebook Messenger statistics, you’ll love these SMS marketing stats!
And now that you’ve had some time to digest these Facebook Messenger statistics, you’re probably experiencing some FOMO.
So, here’s how to get started with chatbot marketing:
