Facebook Splitting Into A Separate App For Messenger

Back in April, Facebook first announced its plans to split its flagship app from Facebook Messenger, and the social media giant has now sent a reminder to users around the world that they will soon need to use a separate app to message friends from their mobile devices.

Facebook is continuing with its broader strategy to offer additional apps as opposed to forcing its entire suite of services into a single mobile offering.  Facebook currently has approximately 200 million monthly Messenger users, and the company believes that by splitting Facebook and Messenger into two separate apps, it can better improve the performance of both.

Facebook issued the following statement about moving ahead with its siloed app strategy:

“In the next few days, we’re continuing to notify more people that if they want to send and receive Facebook messages, they’ll need to download the Messenger app. As we’ve said, our goal is to focus development efforts on making Messenger the best mobile messaging experience possible and avoid the confusion of having separate Facebook mobile messaging experiences. Messenger is used by more than 200 million people every month, and we’ll keep working to make it an even more engaging way to connect with people.”

Some industry analysts are suggesting that this app separation is heavily connected to Facebook’s acquisition of Whatsapp for $16 billion, with the company planning to integrate additional features and functionality into Messenger with the least impact possible to their core social networking app.  While changes to Facebook sometimes do not initially receive positive reviews from users, they often grow in popularity over time.  Facebook is claiming that the separate apps will help to speed up the rates of response to messages sent out to friends, and if this proves to be true, the change may appear positive to users once it has been fully implemented.  A Facebook spokesperson stated that users will still be able to see message notifications in the core Facebook app, and they will be able to easily switch between Facebook and Messenger.

Mobile was once a weak area for Facebook, but in recent times it has taken the company to new heights of success.  Due to its mobile ad business, Facebook recently reported earnings of $0.42 per share, excluding one-time items, on revenue of $2.91 billion – up 61% year-over-year.  The total number of daily active mobile users grew by almost 40%, year-over-year, and was up by more than 650 million on average in June of this year.  According to eMarketer, Facebook now has 22% of the mobile advertising market, second only to Google with its 50% mobile market share.

The result of a change such as this takes time to discover, with some industry experts expecting it to hurt the popularity of Facebook Messenger, while others expect it to be another step in the continued growth of Facebook’s expansive mobile success.