In Q2 2022, Meta’s Messenger attracted 52% of the top 10 US messaging apps’ daily active users, down 6 percentage points from the same quarter two years earlier. Discord increased its share by 7 percentage points over the same period, riding a pandemic surge that has not dropped off.

In this report, we look at the most important updates among the leading social platforms in Q2 and how those changes will impact marketers.

Sheryl Sandberg is leaving Meta at a crossroads: Departure of No. 2 exec comes as company faces major business challenges.

With more than 6 in 10 smartphone users adopting mobile peer-to-peer payments in the US across multiple apps, providers are looking to widen their addressable base, mitigate pain points, and drive engagement.

Meta touts commercial possibilities of messaging: New WhatsApp API and business messaging features offer ways to diversify revenue as ad segment comes under pressure.

Contractual issues have reportedly stalled its plans to let users send money to businesses via WhatsApp.

WhatsApp looks to take group messaging to a new level: Communities feature allows separate groups to unite with encrypted communications.

Meta’s facing international growth challenges: Legal inquiries and fines from South Africa and Ireland are the latest hurdles the social media leader must contend with.

Facebook is back in the FTC’s sights: The social media giant’s acquisition strategy is under scrutiny as the next wave of antitrust legislation rears its head.

Confirming speculations, Meta is enabling P2P payments within WhatsApp through its digital wallet app, Novi.

Move over, millennials: The new kids in town, Gen Z, have claimed the crown as most sought-after demographic for brands. With their deep digital nativity and social influence, this generation is making its mark on society and brand strategy.

UK regulators prune Meta’s walled garden: Meta has been ordered to sell Giphy, and new ownership could bring back the GIF database’s popular ad program, without the antitrust concerns.

Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, owns the top four mobile apps worldwide, with WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram seeing the most cumulative downloads between Q1 2014 and Q3 2021.

WhatsApp chases Discord's success with Communities feature: The platform's upcoming tools could help create intimate, niche communities—a formula for high engagement and brand interest.

Advertising on Facebook has become more challenging due to Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework in iOS 14.5. Here’s how advertisers are adapting their strategies in the post-IDFA reality.

On today's episode, we discuss Facebook’s recent outages and how WhatsApp being down in particular affected consumers and businesses around the world. Tune in to the discussion as eMarketer principal analyst Bill Fisher hosts senior analysts Jasmine Enberg and Matteo Ceurvels.

The number of mobile messaging app users worldwide will rise by 6.1% in 2021, and new business features facilitate brand-consumer interactions.