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Three Months After Split, Facebook Messenger Hits 500 Million Users

Looks like the app split is paying off.

by Kurt Wagner

Messenger, Facebook’s standalone messaging app, has 500 million monthly users, the company announced Monday.

The milestone comes just three months after Facebook forced users to download the app in order to send or receive Facebook messages on mobile. Facebook isn’t specifying exactly how many users the app had when the company made the split, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Facebook’s Q1 earnings call in April that Messenger had 200 million users.

The Messenger split angered many Facebook users who were previously able to send and receive messages in the flagship app without having to download a separate product. Zuckerberg explained the company’s reasoning for the split in a public Q&A last week after the question of why Facebook made the change was the most popular query submitted by users.

The new figure means Facebook now owns three of the most widely used social products in the world with Messenger, Facebook (1.35 billion users) and WhatsApp (600 million users).

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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