Facebook now lets anyone around the world sign up for Messenger without an account

In June, Facebook announced that it no longer required Messenger users to have a Facebook account. This was only available to those in Canada, the United States, Peru, and Venezuela, however. But now, the social networking company has opened it up to the rest of the world.

Anyone interested in communicating with their friends — or soon, businesses — can sign up using their phone number. If it’s your preference, you can also use your Facebook account.

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As Facebook readies its Messenger Platform for primetime, making Messenger more accessible and perhaps more enticing to people (who might opt not to download Messenger because they dislike the standalone app) is going to be crucial. Now there will be fewer obstacles that prevent users from transferring money to their friends or interacting with businesses.

Opening up Facebook Messenger to more people without an account could also be beneficial to those in developing countries. Large percentages of emerging nations have cell phone owners sending and receiving payments on their devices. So by skipping the Facebook account, Messenger users could just use their phone number and not have to have another login to remember.

Facebook Messenger has a massive audience of monthly active users. In May, the app passed 600 million monthly active users, a gain of 100 million since November when it last released numbers. Now that there’s an alternate way to log into Messenger, will the company see the app’s MAUs increase dramatically?