Here's a quick reminder just how enormous Facebook is
While there's been a lot of hand-wringing recently about how teens are ditching Facebook, the company still dominates the social media sphere because it's not just one network.
During Facebook's bang-up Q2 earnings, the company shared updates on each of its separate apps that serves as the perfect reminder about just how enormous Facebook is:
That's a 100 million bump for Messenger, a 150 million pop for Groups, and a 100 million surge for WhatsApp since Facebook's last update in March. That's three months ago.
While there's undoubtedly a lot of cross-over in those user bases (and you can't use Groups without a proper Facebook account and Facebook only just made it possible to use Messenger without a main account), Instagram and WhatsApp give Facebook access to younger and international users who might not use the main service.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg told told Wired this spring that those apps are actually growing at a faster rate than Facebook's core app.
Of course, the company paid a pretty penny for those users. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.