Mar 9, 2011 15:51 GMT  ·  By

Windows Live Messenger seems to feel right at home on the world’s largest social network, growing on users at an amazing rate. Piero Sierra, Group Program Manager, Windows Live revealed that in excess of 22 million users have connected Facebook to Windows Live Messenger, up from 10 million in November 2010 and 18 million in February 2011.

According to statistics, Windows Live Messenger is now the second most used application on Facebook with no less than 14.4 million daily active users.

“Messenger’s consistently high ranking on the Facebook App Leaderboard for daily active users (DAU) reflects the growing popularity of connecting Facebook to Messenger amongst our customers,” Sierra added.

Additional usage statistics for the software giant’s instant messaging client on Facebook also reflect the strong momentum enjoyed by Messenger.

Back in November, Facebook users were accounting for no less than 2.8 billion minutes of Facebook chat on Messenger.

Now, the number of minutes that Windows Live Messenger powers for Facebook users has simply exploded.

“Facebook chat from Messenger and Hotmail is by far the most popular feature of our partnership with Facebook. The number of minutes spent on Facebook chat from Messenger has grown nearly 25% since we made this feature available worldwide in Messenger at the beginning of February (and a few weeks ago, Facebook chat came to Hotmail users worldwide, too). Messenger now powers nearly 4 billion minutes of Facebook chat per month,” Sierra explained.

As far as Facebook’s most used applications go, Messenger is runner up to Zynga’s CityVille, having already beat FarmVille, by the same company.

Sierra did note that Microsoft found it hard to keep up with the success of Zynga’s gaming titles, but considering the rate of growth for Messenger, this detail is bound to change in the coming months.

Windows Live Messenger 2011 is available for download here.