Facebook: Messenger has as many active users as WhatsApp

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger have approximately the same number of active users. That claims Facebook, owner of both chat services. In both cases, this concerns 1.2 billion users. WhatsApp was taller than Facebook Messenger for a long time.

Facebook announced Wednesday that Messenger had passed the 1.2 billion monthly user mark. WhatsApp’s latest known figure is also 1.2 billion. Both chat apps have approximately the same number of users since last year. Facebook itself is well above that with a user number of over 1.8 billion. Facebook had 1.2 billion users in 2013, according to a graph of numbers of monthly users of Facebook, FB Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram that tech site Recode published.

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are the two leading apps in smartphone and desktop chatting. In certain countries, some competitors are strong, such as WeChat in China, KakoaTalk in South Korea, and Apple iMessage in the United States.

Graph source: Recode