In just over a year, Facebook Messenger grew from 500 million to 800 million users.
Facebook's star standalone app, Messenger, crossed 800 million monthly users at the close of 2015, the social network reported in a blog post on Thursday. This reflects a significant increase, up from 500 million in late 2014—though a chunk of Messenger's growth can be attributed to Facebook's decision to nix in-app messaging from its flagship app, effectively forcing users to download Messenger.