The popularity of Facebook Messenger on mobile devices is through the roof – and it could soon very well eclipse the social site that launched it.

Variety reports that the social site is now enabling users in various countries to sign up for Messenger without first setting up an account on the main Facebook site. This includes consumers in the United States, as well as Canada, Peru and Venezuela. As a result, this could help Messenger eventually gain even more users than those on the main Facebook app itself.

Even though sign-up doesn’t require a Facebook account in these countries (needing only a name and a working phone number), it still encourages users to use their Facebook account for Messenger, as indicated by this blog post. With this, users will have better ways to find contacts, as well as access Messenger features on desktop and laptop devices, without having a secondary user list.

Messaging has really gone to great strides, following Facebook’s $19 billion investment in messaging service WhatsApp last year, which led to the launch of the Messenger app just last year.

Since its launch, Messenger has spread like wildfire, breaking away from the main Facebook application and becoming the most popular free app on Google Play. It’s also quite popular in the App Store as well, with continuous top ten placement. With over 700 million users and counting on a monthly basis (according to numbers provided by CEO Mark Zuckerberg), it’s easy to see why.

Messenger still has a catch-up game ahead of it when it comes to Facebook’s main audience. That site still has 1.4 billion active users on a monthly basis, just half of where Messenger sites. However, it’s shown quite a bit of growth, going from 500 million users in November to 600 million this past March. At that pace, it could catch up to Facebook by sometime next year – and with this new sign-up feature, maybe even quicker.

For Facebook, it seems that the message is certainly clear.