Facebook adds stickers to Messenger for Android, likely to show up elsewhere soon

Update on April 23: Stickers have officially added to Facebook Messenger for Android; you can download the latest version of the app now on Google Play. The news follows yesterdya’s discovery that the feature was available, but hidden, in the app for a few weeks now.

The official Facebook Messenger version 2.4.3 for Android changelog is as follows:

• Instantly send stickers. Just tap the smiley and choose a playful kitten or another cute critter.
• Bug fixes.

The original story from April 22 is below.

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Facebook Stickers won’t likely be iOS-only for long, as the feature is already partially available on Facebook Messenger for Android. It’s just hidden; you have to go digging for it.

This latest discovery comes to us from the Thai blog Droid Sans. To use it, you’ll have to follow these instructions (via Android Police):

• Enable Chat Heads. (This only works in a popped out Chat Head, it doesn’t work in the regular Facebook chat.)
• Press the tiny invisible area to the left of the “+” button on the bottom left.
• Bam – stickers.

If you’re having trouble finding the invisible area that you need to tap, look no further than this screenshot:

For those who prefer a more visual explanation, this Thai video on YouTube has you covered:

Facebook brought stickers to its iOS app last week, but that was the company’s main app, not Facebook Messenger. Finding stickers in the Facebook Messenger app for Android (which have apparently been there since April 12) suggests not only that stickers will soon arrive in the app (presumably outside of Chat Heads) but also on Facebook for Android, Facebook Messenger for Android, and Facebook for iOS.

Facebook is likely still doing some internal testing with stickers on these apps while also gathering feedback regarding stickers in the main Facebook app for iOS. If all goes well, you can expect they will become a main feature of the company’s mobile strategy.

To understand why the company is pushing so hard for stickers, you don’t have to look further than the financial justification. Line, a Japanese social network, generated $4.4 million in revenue from just stickers during two months last year.

See also – Facebook for iOS gets Chat Heads, Stickers, and revamped News Feed while Home for Android rolls out globally and Android users without Facebook Home can still get Chat Heads, via a new Messenger update

Top Image Credit: Amber Edgar