Displaying items by tag: messenger

The European Union (EU) plans to push for greater regulation of internet phone messaging services such as Facebook Messenger, Skype and WhatsApp.

Social network giant Facebook posted a 71 percent increase in Q2 profit and a 50 percent rise in mobile ad sales, extinguishing rumors that ad revenue growth had faded for the company as it runs out of ad display space. Facebook also announced a new milestone that there are now 2 billion people using the platform.

Facebook’s shares reached a record high on Thursday, July 27, after it posted positive results, adding more than $27 billion to its market value. The company’s shares increased 6 percent to $175 in early trading, adding gains worth twice the market capitalization of rival Twitter, Reuters said.

Facebook admitted that ad revenue growth is expected to slow down during 2017. Growth in ad sales did drop to 47 percent in Q2, after a 51 percent increase the previous quarter, but that didn’t seem to bother investors who are now looking ahead to new ad growth opportunities with Facebook’s other platforms including WhatsApp, Messenger and with video.

Moffett Nathanson Research analyst Michael Nathanson said, “The strength of Facebook’s mind-boggling results continued to be a testament of the platform’s massive user base and unparalleled targeting abilities.”

While Facebook reported a milestone 2 billion users, its other platforms Messenger and WhatsApp, have more than 1 billion users each. Every day, more than 175 million people share a Love reaction, and on average, over 800 million people like something on Facebook, the company claims. What’s more, over 250 million people use Instagram Stories every day, and more than 250 million people use WhatsApp Status every day.

“I'm proud of the progress our community is making, and it comes with a responsibility to make sure we have the most positive impact on the world that we can,” said Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in an online post. “That's why, last month, we updated Facebook's mission to focus not just on connecting the world, but also bringing the world closer together.”

Mobile advertizing was one of Facebook’s strongest revenue sources, accounting for 87 percent of the $9.16 billion in total ad revenue, as the average growth in ads increased 24 percent to a record high. Credit Suisse analyst Stephen Ju said advertisers will still buy Facebook ads space despite an increase in prices, due to Facebook’s superior return on investment compared with other digital platforms.

Facebook is celebrating the sweet taste of success, after announcing that one billion people are now using its instant messaging app Facebook Messenger every month, making it the second-most popular iOS app of all time, second only to its big brother, the Facebook app.

“We are announcing that more than one billion people now use Facebook Messenger every month, making messenger one of only a handful of apps worldwide that touch so many lives,” Facebook said in a post. “We are grateful for all the people who are sending billions of messages every day and we hope to send one billion thank you in the form of a new floating balloon emoji that everyone can use to celebrate.”

Almost 10 percent of all VoIP (Voice-over-IP) calls around the world are now made through Facebook Messenger. What’s more, since the messaging platform first launched, over 18,000 bots have launched on Facebook Messenger and over 23,000 developers have signed up for Wit.ai’s Bot Engine. 17 billion photos are being sent through the app every month, and on average, more than 22 million GIFs are sent every day – that’s 254 GIFs per second.

The app has been downloaded over a billon times on Android and people using Facebook Messenger have played an average of 1.2 billion games of basketball. In addition, there are over 250 sticker packs available in the app with more than 4,000 stickers. Over 380 million stickers are sent via the app every day.

“As part of this journey to one billion, we focused on creating the best possible experience in modern day communications,” said David Marcus, vice president, Facebook Messenger. “We remain focused on helping connect to the people and businesses who matter most.”

Despite the fact that Facebook, which owns WhatsApp messenger, cannot read its users messages because of end-to-end encryption on its messages, on Thursday, June 30, a Brazilian court blocked 19.5 million reals ($6.07 million) of Facebook funds after the social media giant failed to reveal messages related to a drugs case.

It’s the latest in a long-running feud between Brazil and WhatsApp, after a Brazilian judge shut down the messaging service for 72 hours in May, affecting Brazil’s 100 million WhatsApp users. The shutdown was lifted within 24 hours by another court.

Brazil’s federal police say Facebook has repeatedly defied its orders to turn over messages that could be used against suspected members of an international cocaine smuggling group that has been under investigation since January this year. News website G1 reported that Brazilian police say it would be impossible to link the suspected members to those captured in recent raids and their confederates in Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Spain.

The problem is, Facebook cannot do anything to help Brazil, because WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, meaning the company has absolutely no access to what its users share. Brazil doesn’t seem to understand this, because after repeatedly requesting that Facebook expose the messages, a judge in Brazil’s southern Parana state decided to freeze Facebook’s funds, which are reportedly equal to WhatsApp’s fines accumulated for not complying with the Brazilian court.

WhatsApp doesn’t have any bank accounts in Brazil, so the judge decided to freeze funds owned by Facebook instead. But The Guardian reports that the Brazilian court did not use provision of Brazil’s internet law that allows courts to shut down services in special cases of non-compliance with court orders.

When Brazil arrested and detained a senior Facebook executive in March, the company said in a statement that it had cooperated with investigators to the full extent of its ability. “We are disappointed that law enforcement took this extreme step,” said the spokesman. “WhatsApp cannot provide information we do not have.”