Facebook Messenger Keeps Trucking, Passes 800 Million Users

Facebook’s standalone messaging app, Messenger, has eclipsed 800 million users worldwide. That’s a lot of people, even by Facebook’s standards.

The news was shared in a blog post written by Messenger boss David Marcus early Thursday morning. In the spirit of the New Year, Marcus reflected on 2015 and shared a few themes for the year ahead, including what he called “the disappearance of the phone number.” In Facebook’s world, that means the ability to send messages and make calls via your Facebook profile instead of an actual phone number (which you can already do).

Marcus also talked about “Innovation,” specifically the virtual assistant Facebook is building into the Messenger product to help users do things like manager their schedules and shop online. Marcus isn’t the only one to highlight artificial intelligence as an area of focus. CEO Mark Zuckerberg says his 2016 goal will be to build an AI butler for his house, Tony Stark-style.

For those out there drinking the haterade, it might be worth noting one thing: Messenger growth may finally be slowing, albeit slightly. It took the company six months to push from 700 million to 800 million users, but just four months to get from 500 million to 600 million and three months to jump 600 million to 700 million. Slowdown like that is typical with numbers this size, but again, worth noting.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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