Facebook Messenger app downloads cross 500-million mark: Report

The new Facebook Messenger app has been downloaded over 500 million times on Android-based devices, says a report by Google Play Store.

Facebook had released the app to move messages out of the main Facebook app, claiming that messaging with the new messenger is faster and more reliable.

The app received poor reviews from its users, with most criticising the popular social networking site for forcing them to download a separate app to access their messages.

There were some users who were worried about the privacy implications of the Messenger app.

Replying to some of the queries, Facebook had 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."

The Google Play Store report added that no app has been downloaded over 1 billion times yet.