What just happened? It'southward no secret that Facebook and its suite of apps are popular, something that'due south best illustrated by looking at the well-nigh downloaded Android apps of all time. Just xiii have been installed more five billion times, and Facebook is the only non-Google visitor on the list. Now, another of the social network'south backdrop, Messenger, has passed the milestone.

Every bit one would await, the five billion+ download club, co-ordinate to Google Play, is dominated past Google's apps: YouTube, Maps, Gmail, and the similar are found on most Android devices. The simply entries not from the company'due south stable had been the Facebook app, which passed that number in 2022, and WhatsApp when information technology joined the list in early 2022.

Android Constabulary reports that Facebook Messenger has simply go the third Facebook app to have been downloaded more than five billion times on Android across its lifetime. It was never in incertitude that the app would join its siblings in boasting this distinction; according to Statista, it has the second-highest number of monthly active users—1.three billion—after WhatsApp's 2 billion (as of January 2022).

Apps downloaded from the Play Shop more than 5 billion times

Facebook Messenger has at present joined this list

Mark Zuckerberg will doubtlessly be pleased to larn of Messenger's ongoing success. Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, and several other rivals, information technology however hasn't received finish-to-stop encryption—that'south set up to go far next year—withal the lack of such a characteristic has non damaged Messenger's popularity.

Facebook has long faced criticism over its lax attitude toward user privacy and security. It'due south also had to deal with being viewed as a social network for "old people," with the likes of Snapchat and TikTok considered "cooler" alternatives. Nevertheless, it continues to be a money-making car and may observe its download numbers surge in one case Facebook's cross-app messaging functionality is rolled out in total.