Facebook has been busy beefing up Messenger this year, with a near constant stream of updates, tweaks, and (generally speaking), improvements.

Turns out its efforts have not been in vain. Messenger has just joined the 1 billion club, bringing Messenger into the hallowed company of Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp.

Billion Dollar Baby

Back in 2014 Messenger had a mere 200 million users. However once Facebook virtually forced users to use the service after cutting off support from its flagship app, numbers have exploded.

To celebrate the occasion, Facebook has released a balloon feature that adds animations to messages when using the balloon emoji.

Talk isn’t cheap

And how are 1 billion people using Messenger? Sending lots of photos and GIFs.

17 billion pics are shared every month on Messenger, and 22 million animated GIFs every day.

There are also close to 20,000 bots now roaming Messenger, up from 11,000 in July.

Business ice-breaker

Interestingly, brands are also embracing the platform.

Every month over 1 billion messages are exchanged between users and companies.