San Francisco, Sep 15 (IANS): More than 1.3 billion people around the world are now using Facebook Messenger every month, the company has announced.

The Messenger surpassed the one billion monthly active users (MAUs) mark in July 2016.

"We've continued working hard to make Messenger the best it can be, introducing new masks, filters and reactions for video chat,... making our virtual personal assistant available in more places around the world," Facebook said in a post on Friday.

The growth of Messenger now puts the app at par with Facebook-owned WhatsApp which also has 1.3 billion MAUs.

The growth comes as Messenger and WhatsApp both have taken concrete steps towards monetisation.

"We have rolled out 'Instant Games' more broadly and bringing 'Messenger Lite' to more countries. We also redesigned the Inbox so that all of your favourite features are front and centre making it easier to connect," the Messenger post read.

Facebook announced in June that it has nearly two billion monthly active users.

Facebook-owned Instagram has 700 million monthly users, 200 million of which are using its 'Stories' feature every day.

The nearest rival Snapchat has only about 166 million daily active users.

"We are very grateful to each and every one of you in the Messenger community for Messenger to reach the people and businesses you care most about," Facebook said.