Facebook Messenger may still have Dear Utol (2025): Week 8 Highlights Episode 45its fair share of haters but, chances are, even they are still using the app.

The service now counts more than 1.2 billion monthly active users, Facebook announced Tuesday. That's up from 1 billion users last July.

Facebook attributes much of the recent growth to the expansion of Messenger Lite, the version of the app launched last fall for slower connections and older phones, as well as the rapid expansion of new features.

In the past few weeks alone, the app has introduced: Slack-like reactions and mentions, real-time location sharing, M suggestions, group payments, and, of course, its Snapchat Stories clone Messenger Day. That's all in addition to the Snapchat-like camera feature that lets you share disappearing selfies with friends.

Though some have criticized all that as a lot of confusing bloat, Facebook shows no sign of slowing down -- it's hard to argue with 1.2 billion people, after all.

The latest milestone also comes just a week ahead of the company's F8 developer conference, where Facebook is expected to introduce even more updates to the platform as it looks to expand Messenger's reach even further.