Meta Platforms had ****** full-time employees as of December 2024, down from ****** people in 2023. As of December 2023, more than ******* employees at tech companies worldwide were laid off throughout the year across more than 1,000 companies. Facebook: how it all beganIn 2003, a sophomore at named Mark Zuckerberg hacked into protected areas of the university's computer network in order to find photos of other students. He then would pair two of them next to each other on a program called “Facemash” and ask users to choose the more attractive person. At the beginning of 2004, Zuckerberg launched “The Facebook,” a social network dedicated to Harvard students, which later grew to encompass Columbia, Yale and Stanford. The popularity of this new service sky-rocketed and in mid-2004, Zuckerberg interrupted his studies and moved his operation to Palo Alto, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. By 2006, Facebook was open to the general public. In 2020, the company reported almost ** billion U.S. dollars in revenue and a net income of ***** billion US dollars. It is also the most popular social network in the world, with *** billion monthly active users as of December 2020. Facebook employee diversity criticismLike many other tech companies, Facebook has been criticized for having a diversity problem. As of June 2020, tech positions, as well as management roles in U.S. offices were overwhelmingly occupied by men. Furthermore, almost ** percent of Facebook employees in the U.S. are White and only *** percent are African-American, which has sparked concern regarding representation and equal opportunities. Around **** percent of senior level positions are occupied by White employees and only *** percent by Hispanic-Americans.

Which county has the most Facebook users? There are more than 383 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size. To put this into context, if India’s Facebook audience were a country, then it would be ranked third in terms of largest population worldwide. Apart from India, there are several other markets with more than 100 million Facebook users each: The United States, Indonesia, and Brazil with 196.9 million, 122.3 million, and 111.65 million Facebook users respectively. Facebook – the most used social media Meta, the company that was previously called Facebook, owns four of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram. As of the third quarter of 2021, there were around 3.5 billion cumulative monthly users of the company’s products worldwide. With around 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social media worldwide. With an audience of this scale, it is no surprise that the vast majority of Facebook’s revenue is generated through advertising. Facebook usage by device As of July 2021, it was found that 98.5 percent of active users accessed their Facebook account from mobile devices. In fact, almost 81.8 percent of Facebook audiences worldwide access the platform only via mobile phone. Facebook is not only available through mobile browser as the company has published several mobile apps for users to access their products and services. As of the third quarter 2021, the four core Meta products were leading the ranking of most downloaded mobile apps worldwide, with WhatsApp amassing approximately six billion downloads.

Meta's family of apps continues to dominate the global social media landscape, with **** billion daily active users across its core products in the second quarter of 2025. This represents a slight increase from the previous quarter and underscores the company's enduring influence in connecting people worldwide. Instagram's global reach and demographics Among Meta's portfolio, Instagram stands out with its impressive user base in key markets. India leads with *** million users, followed by the United States with *** million and Brazil with *** million. Messenger and WhatsApp usage trends Meta's messaging apps continue to see robust engagement. Facebook Messenger averaged 394 million daily active users on Android devices between October 2023 and October 2024, with iOS users adding another *** million on average. Meanwhile, WhatsApp has solidified its position as the leading communication channel for global smartphone users, reaching an estimated ***** billion unique active users worldwide in June 2024.

Abstract

To gain a deeper understanding of the perspectives, challenges, and opportunities for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook and partners collaborate to collect and share timely information with the broader community. The State of Small Business (SoSB) Survey surveys SMBs, employees, and consumers from approximately 30 countries across the globe. This combination of survey respondents allows us to evaluate how the impacts on SMBs, their employees, and their clients have developed throughout 2021.

Geographic coverage

Argentina Australia Belgium Brazil Canada Colombia Egypt France Germany Ghana India Indonesia Ireland Israel Italy Kenya Mexico Nigeria Pakistan Philippines Poland Portugal Russian Federation (the) South Africa Spain Taiwan Turkey United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland United States of America (the) Vietnam

Analysis unit

The study describes small and medium-sized business owners, their employees and consumers.

Universe

The survey uses a random sample of SMB leaders with Facebook Page administrator privileges and of the general population of Facebook users. Therefore, the sample covered in the survey is representative of SMB leaders surveyable through Facebook at the country level.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The survey reaches a random sample of SMB leaders with Facebook Page administrator privileges and of the general population of Facebook users. A random sample of firms, representing the target population in each country, is selected to respond to the survey. To achieve better representation of the broader small business population on Facebook, Facebook also weights our results based on known characteristics of the Facebook Page admin population.

Mode of data collection

Internet [int]

Research instrument

Questions cover a range of topics depending on the survey wave such as business characteristics, challenges, financials and strategy in addition to custom modules related to regulation, access to finance, digital technologies, reduction in revenues, business closures, reduction of employees and challenges/needs of the business

Response rate

Response rates to online surveys vary widely depending on a number of factors including survey length, region, strength of the relationship with invitees, incentive mechanisms, invite copy, interest of respondents in the topic and survey design. To achieve better representation of the broader small business population on Facebook, Facebookwe also weights our results based on known characteristics of the Facebook Page admin population.

Note: Response rates are calculated as the number of respondents who completed the survey divided by the total number of SMBs invited.

Sampling error estimates

Any survey data is prone to several forms of error and biases that need to be considered to understand how closely the results reflect the intended population. In particular, the following components of the total survey error are noteworthy: Sampling error is a natural characteristic of every survey based on samples and reflects the uncertainty in any survey result that is attributable to the fact that not the whole population is surveyed.Other factors beyond sampling error that contribute to such potential differences are frame or coverage error (sampling frame of Page owners does not include all relevant businesses but also may include individuals that don’t represent businesses), and nonresponse error.

Note that the sample is meant to reflect the population of businesses on Facebook, not the population of small businesses in general. This group of digitized SMEs is itself a community worthy of deeper consideration and of considerable policy interest. However, care should be taken when extrapolating to the population of SMEs in general. Moreover, future work should evaluate the external validity of the sample. Particularly, respondents should be compared to the broader population of SMEs on Facebook, and the economy as a whole.

Which county has the most Facebook users?

              There are more than 378 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size. To put this into context, if India’s Facebook audience were a country then it would be ranked third in terms of largest population worldwide. Apart from India, there are several other markets with more than 100 million Facebook users each: The United States, Indonesia, and Brazil with 193.8 million, 119.05 million, and 112.55 million Facebook users respectively.

              Facebook – the most used social media

              Meta, the company that was previously called Facebook, owns four of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram. As of the third quarter of 2021, there were around 3,5 billion cumulative monthly users of the company’s products worldwide. With around 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social media worldwide. With an audience of this scale, it is no surprise that the vast majority of Facebook’s revenue is generated through advertising.

              Facebook usage by device
              As of July 2021, it was found that 98.5 percent of active users accessed their Facebook account from mobile devices. In fact, almost 81.8 percent of Facebook audiences worldwide access the platform only via mobile phone. Facebook is not only available through mobile browser as the company has published several mobile apps for users to access their products and services. As of the third quarter 2021, the four core Meta products were leading the ranking of most downloaded mobile apps worldwide, with WhatsApp amassing approximately six billion downloads.

In 2022, 6.5 percent of Meta employees in the United States identified as Hispanic and 4.9 percent identified as Black. Asian employees accounted for over 46.5 percent of the overall workforce, whilst white employees made up 37.6 percent of Meta's workforce.

The global number of Facebook users was forecast to continuously increase between 2023 and 2027 by in total 391 million users (+14.36 percent). After the fourth consecutive increasing year, the Facebook user base is estimated to reach 3.1 billion users and therefore a new peak in 2027. Notably, the number of Facebook users was continuously increasing over the past years. User figures, shown here regarding the platform Facebook, have been estimated by taking into account company filings or press material, secondary research, app downloads and traffic data. They refer to the average monthly active users over the period and count multiple accounts by persons only once.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

Facebook received 73,390 user data requests from federal agencies and courts in the United States during the second half of 2023. The social network produced some user data in 88.84 percent of requests from U.S. federal authorities. The United States accounts for the largest share of Facebook user data requests worldwide.

As of April 2024, it was found that men between the ages of 25 and 34 years made up Facebook largest audience, accounting for 18.4 percent of global users. Additionally, Facebook's second largest audience base could be found with men aged 18 to 24 years.

              Facebook connects the world

              Founded in 2004 and going public in 2012, Facebook is one of the biggest internet companies in the world with influence that goes beyond social media. It is widely considered as one of the Big Four tech companies, along with Google, Apple, and Amazon (all together known under the acronym GAFA). Facebook is the most popular social network worldwide and the company also owns three other billion-user properties: mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger,
              as well as photo-sharing app Instagram. Facebook usersThe vast majority of Facebook users connect to the social network via mobile devices. This is unsurprising, as Facebook has many users in mobile-first online markets. Currently, India ranks first in terms of Facebook audience size with 378 million users. The United States, Brazil, and Indonesia also all have more than 100 million Facebook users each.

As of April 2024, Facebook had an addressable ad audience reach 131.1 percent in Libya, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 120.5 percent and Mongolia with 116 percent. Additionally, the Philippines and Qatar had addressable ad audiences of 114.5 percent and 111.7 percent.

The number of employees at Cognizant peaked at ******* worldwide in 2022, after a steady increase in the last decade. However, it slightly decreased in 2023 with ******* employees. India is the country where Cognizant employs most of its workers, followed by North America, with ****** employees. Cognizant Recent media focus on its role of Facebook content moderator has put the American IT services and consulting company Cognizant into the public spotlight. However, content moderating is but a small fraction of the entirety of its businesses. With an annual revenue of over ** billion U.S. dollars in 2023, Cognizant is one of the leading IT services companies worldwide. The company brought in most of its revenues from the financial services segment; a bulk of its sales also come from providing services to healthcare providers/payers as well as life science companies. Although most of Cognizant’s workforce is located in India, the majority of their revenues is generated in North America.

During a 2024 survey among marketers worldwide, around 86 percent reported using Facebook for marketing purposes. Instagram and LinkedIn followed, respectively mentioned by 79 and 65 percent of the respondents.

              The global social media marketing segment

              According to the same study, 59 percent of responding marketers intended to increase their organic use of YouTube for marketing purposes throughout that year. LinkedIn and Instagram followed with similar shares, rounding up the top three social media platforms attracting a planned growth in organic use among global marketers in 2024. Their main driver is increasing brand exposure and traffic, which led the ranking of benefits of social media marketing worldwide.

              Social media for B2B marketing

              Social media platform adoption rates among business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketers vary according to each subsegment's focus. While B2C professionals prioritize Facebook and Instagram – both run by Meta, Inc. – due to their popularity among online audiences, B2B marketers concentrate their endeavors on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn due to its goal to connect people and companies in a corporate context.

In 2024, Google ranked as the most valuable media and entertainment brand worldwide, with a brand value of 683 billion U.S. dollars. Facebook ranked second, valued at around 167 billion dollars. Part of the Tencent Group, WeChat and v.qq.com (Tencent Video) had a brand value of 56 billion and 17.5 billion dollars, respectively.

During a January 2024 global survey among marketers, nearly 60 percent reported plans to increase their organic use of YouTube for marketing purposes in the following 12 months. LinkedIn and Instagram followed, respectively mentioned by 57 and 56 percent of the respondents intending to use them more. According to the same survey, Facebook was the most important social media platform for marketers worldwide.

In 2023, Meta Platforms had a total annual revenue of over 134 billion U.S. dollars, up from 116 billion in 2022. LinkedIn reported its highest annual revenue to date, generating over 15 billion USD, whilst Snapchat reported an annual revenue of 4.6 billion USD.

In 2023, it was estimated that social forum and news aggregator Reddit saw over 26.5 million U.S. dollars in revenues from global paying users with an annual subscription. A premium Reddit subscription comes with an ad-free environment, as well as the possibility to join premium subreddits such as r/lounge. In 2022, Reddit counted approximately 530 thousand paying users. By 2026, Reddit annual subscription revenues are estimated to bring in 36.5 million U.S. dollars in revenues.

As of January 2024, Instagram was slightly more popular with men than women, with men accounting for 50.6 percent of the platform’s global users. Additionally, the social media app was most popular amongst younger audiences, with almost 32 percent of users aged between 18 and 24 years.

              Instagram’s Global Audience

              As of January 2024, Instagram was the fourth most popular social media platform globally, reaching two billion monthly active users (MAU). This number is projected to keep growing with no signs of slowing down, which is not a surprise as the global online social penetration rate across all regions is constantly increasing.
              As of January 2024, the country with the largest Instagram audience was India with 362.9 million users, followed by the United States with 169.7 million users.

              Who is winning over the generations?

              Even though Instagram’s audience is almost twice the size of TikTok’s on a global scale, TikTok has shown itself to be a fierce competitor, particularly amongst younger audiences. TikTok was the most downloaded mobile app globally in 2022, generating 672 million downloads. As of 2022, Generation Z in the United States spent more time on TikTok than on Instagram monthly.