Facebook and Google both just reached a significant milestone. Google's Gmail and Facebook's WhatsApp both claim more than 1 billion monthly active users, the companies announced Monday.
News of both milestones came at nearly the exact same time. Gmail's milestone was announced during Alphabet's Q4 earnings call, with WhatsApp's news coming just minutes later.
Though neither update is surprising — both services have been quickly approaching the 1 billion user mark — that both apps would announce their new stats almost simultaneously highlights the increasing competition among tech companies to put out what many view as vanity stats.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton on Monday, and hinted at plans to grow even more in the near future, noting that few services can claim similar reach.
"Next, we're going to work to connect more people around the world and make it easier to communicate with businesses," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post Monday. "There are only a few services that connect more than a billion people. This milestone is an important step towards connecting the entire world."
Facebook's flagship service and Groups each count more than a billion users as well. Messenger is also getting close to the 1 billion user milestone as well, Facebook said in last week's earnings call.
Even though Gmail, which launched in 2004, took much longer to hit 1 billion users, Google still has more products counting more than a billion monthly active users. Android, Chrome, YouTube, Maps, Search and Google Play each have more than a billion monthly actives.
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