Instagram Inches Toward Super App Status with New Messaging Upgrades

That pivot to boost Instagram’s presence as a type of all-in-one super app comes amid turbulent times for the Big Blue Facebook app.

Earlier this year, Facebook reported its first quarterly decline in daily active users in the company’s history, a factor driven in part by its abysmal performance among young users. Instagram, conversely is more attractive amongst young users, though it’s facing its own issues as well. The changes also come as users flock to competitors like TikTok who’ve managed to solidify their presence in short-form video. Mosseri hinted at the pressure from TikTok in his statement.

“Let’s be honest, there’s some really serious competition right now,” Mosseri said. “TikTok is huge, YouTube is even bigger and there’s lots of other upstarts as well.”

There’s one major communication area Instagram has spent less time emphasizing: Voice messaging. Instagram added the feature back in 2018 though it hasn’t appeared to take off in the same way in some of Meta’s other apps. Just this week, for example, WhatsApp revealed users on its platform send out a whopping 7 billion voice messages every day.