With roughly three billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2023, Facebook is the most used online social network worldwide. The platform surpassed two billion active users in the second quarter of 2017, taking just over 13 years to reach this milestone. In comparison, Meta-owned Instagram took 11.2 years, and Google’s YouTube took just over 14 years to achieve this landmark. As of January 2022, Facebook’s leading audience base was in India, with almost 330 million users whilst the United States ranked second with an approximate total of 179 million users. The platform also finds remarkable popularity in Indonesia and Brazil. Social Media usage in the United States In January 2021, Facebook was the platform on which users in the United States spent the most time per day. The average time spent on Facebook was 33 minutes, followed by TikTok with 32 minutes and Twitter with 31 daily minutes. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, all major social media platforms saw an increase in daily usage, which then either plateaued or decreased in 2021. At the end of 2021, over a quarter of all Facebook users in the United States belonged to the 25 to 34 year age group and 18.2 percent of users were in the 35 to 44 year age group. In general, Facebook users were more likely to be female. Meta Platforms Meta is Facebook’s recently renamed parent company and had a grand total of 3.59 billion core product users by the final quarter of 2021. Other Meta products include Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Oculus – Meta’s virtual reality subsidiary which produces VR headsets. In 2021, Meta's revenue amounted to 117 billion US dollars, up from around 86 billion U.S. dollars in the previous financial year.

The latest Facebook statistics show that the platform is growing – especially when it comes to advertising. These are the latest Facebook advertising statistics you need to know.

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 this blog are the latest Facebook advertising statistics that show how effective Facebook ads are now and what’s likely to happen in the future.

The number of Facebook users in the United States was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 12.6 million users (+5.04 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the Facebook user base is estimated to reach 262.8 million users and therefore a new peak in 2028. Notably, the number of Facebook users of 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).

36.8% of the entire world’s population uses Facebook at least once per month.

How many users does Facebook have? With roughly 2.85 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2021, Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide. In the third quarter of 2012, the number of active Facebook users surpassed one billion, making it the first social network ever to do so. Active users are those who have logged into Facebook during the past 30 days. During the first quarter of 2021, the company stated that 3.45 billion people were using at least one of the company's core products (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, or Messenger) each month.

Facebook’s beginnings Founded in 2004, Facebook is currently the biggest social networking service based on global reach and total active users. Launched by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and some of his contemporaries, the service was initially only available to Harvard students but soon expanded to regional universities, the Ivy League and further colleges before opening up to high school students and global users aged 13 or over. As of January 2021, India ranks first in terms of Facebook user base size.

How Facebook works Facebook users must register before using the social network and are free to create a personal profile in order to interact with other users which they can add as friends. Furthermore, Facebook users may join user groups based on workplace, college or school and can also categorize their Facebook contacts into lists. Users can post status updates or other content, and message each other. Facebook users can also interact with a wide selection of applications including social games or other Facebook-owned services like photo-sharing app Instagram.

Facebook on mobile As of January 2021, most Facebook users access the social platform almost exclusively via mobile devices. The availability of Facebook on mobile has enabled the company to lay an early claim to mobile-first online markets such as India. Facebook also publishes apps based on original Facebook features such as Facebook Messenger. The wide range of Facebook-related apps ensure that the company is one of the most popular app publishers worldwide based on downloads.

56.5% of Facebook users worldwide are male. This is in direct contrast to only 43.5% of Facebook being female.

The average Facebook user spends about 19.6 per month on Facebook every month. This works out to be about 39 minutes per day.

Business Activity Trends During COVID-19 uses the rate that businesses post on Facebook compared to pre-crisis levels to measure how crisis events are affecting different economic sectors each day.

Learn more details here: https://dataforgood.facebook.com/dfg/tools/business-activity-trends and https://dataforgood.facebook.com/dfg/resources/business-activity-trends-methodology-paper

Facebook is fast approaching 3 billion monthly active users. That’s about 36% of the world’s entire population that log in and use Facebook at least once a month.

As of January 2025, 24.2 percent of Facebook users in the United States were aged between 25 and 34 years, making up Facebook’s largest audience in the country. Overall, 19 percent of users belonged to the 18 to 24-year age group. Does everyone in the U.S. use Facebook? In 2023, there were approximately 247 million Facebook users in the U.S., a figure which is projected to steadily increase, and reach 262.8 million by 2028. Social media users in the United States have a very high awareness of the social media giant. Expectedly, 94 percent of users had heard of the brand in 2023. Although the vast majority of U.S. social networkers knew of Facebook, the likeability of the platform was not so impressive at 68 percent. Nonetheless, usage, loyalty, and buzz around the brand remained relatively high. Facebook, Meta, and the metaverse A strategic rebranding from Facebook to Meta Platforms in late 2021 boded well for the company in Mark Zuckerberg’s attempt to be strongly linked to the metaverse, and to be considered more than just a social media company. According to a survey conducted in the U.S. in early 2022, Meta Platforms is the brand that Americans most associated with the metaverse.  

Dataset

This dataset was created by Karthik Chowdary Tsaliki

Released under Database: Open Database, Contents: Database Contents

Contents

Business Activity Trends during Crisis uses the rate that businesses post on Facebook compared to pre-crisis levels to measure how crisis events are affecting different economic sectors each day.

Learn more details here: https://dataforgood.facebook.com/dfg/tools/business-activity-trends and https://dataforgood.facebook.com/dfg/resources/business-activity-trends-methodology-paper

Here we are posting datasets from selected crisis events.

Abstract

The Future of Business Survey is a new source of information on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Launched in February 2016, the monthly survey - a partnership between Facebook, OECD, and The World Bank - provides a timely pulse on the economic environment in which businesses operate and who those businesses are to help inform decision-making at all levels and to deliver insights that can help businesses grow. The Future of Business Survey provides a perspective from newer and long-standing digitalized businesses and provides a unique window into a new mobilized economy.

Policymakers, researchers and businesses share a common interest in the environment in which SMEs operate, as well their outlook on the future, not least because young and innovative SMEs in particular are often an important source of considerable economic and employment growth. Better insights and timely information about SMEs improve our understanding of economic trends, and can provide new insights that can further stimulate and help these businesses grow.

To help provide these insights, Facebook, OECD and The World Bank have collaborated to develop a monthly survey that attempts to improve our understanding of SMEs in a timely and forward-looking manner. The three organizations share a desire to create new ways to hear from businesses and help them succeed in the emerging digitally-connected economy. The shared goal is to help policymakers, researchers, and businesses better understand business sentiment, and to leverage a digital platform to provide a unique source of information to complement existing indicators.

With more businesses leveraging online tools each day, the survey provides a lens into a new mobilized, digital economy and, in particular, insights on the actors: a relatively unmeasured community worthy of deeper consideration and considerable policy interest.

Geographic coverage

When the survey was initially launched in February 2016, it included 22 countries. When the survey was initially launched in February 2016, it included 22 countries. The Future of Business Survey is now conducted in over 90 countries in every region of the world.

Countries included in at least one wave: Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas (the) Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bolivia (Plurinational State of) Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cayman Islands (the) Central African Republic (the) Chad Chile Colombia Congo (the) Curaçao Cyprus Czechia Côte d'Ivoire Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic (the) Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Faroe Islands (the) Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Gambia (the) Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kenya Korea (the Republic of) Kuwait Lao People's Democratic Republic (the) Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malawi Malaysia Mali Malta Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Monaco Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands (the) New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger (the) Nigeria North Macedonia Northern Mariana Islands (the) Norway Oman Pakistan Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines (the) Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russian Federation (the) Rwanda Réunion Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Tanzania, the United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turks and Caicos Islands (the) Uganda United Arab Emirates (the) United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the) United States of America (the) Uruguay Vanuatu Viet Nam Virgin Islands (British) Virgin Islands (U.S.) Zambia.

Analysis unit

The study describes small and medium-sized enterprises.

Universe

The target population consists of SMEs that have an active Facebook business Page and include both newer and longer-standing businesses, spanning across a variety of sectors. With more businesses leveraging online tools each day, the survey provides a lens into a new mobilized, digital economy and, in particular, insights on the actors: a relatively unmeasured community worthy of deeper consideration and considerable policy interest.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

Twice a year in over 97 countries, the Facebook Survey Team sends the Future of Business to admins and owners of Facebook-designated small business pages. When we share data from this survey, we anonymize responses to all survey questions and only share country-level data publicly. To achieve better representation of the broader small business population, we also weight our results based on known characteristics of the Facebook Page admin population.

A random sample of firms, representing the target population in each country, is selected to respond to the Future of Business Survey each month.

Mode of data collection

Internet [int]

Research instrument

The survey includes questions about perceptions of current and future economic activity, challenges, business characteristics and strategy. Custom modules include questions related to regulation, access to finance, digital payments, and digital skills. The full questionnaire is available for download.

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.

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

The number of Facebook users in Italy was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 5.6 million users (+18.4 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the Facebook user base is estimated to reach 35.98 million users and therefore a new peak in 2028. Notably, the number of Facebook users of 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).

Users aged 25 to 34 years old made up the largest audience of Facebook in the United Kingdom in January 2025, accounting for 24.7 percent of all users. Overall, Facebook users aged 35 to 44 were the platform's second-largest demographic in the UK, followed by those aged 18 to 24. Dip in overall user numbers As of November 2024, there were over 55.9 million Facebook users in the UK, up from 39.01 million in September 2018, according to napoleoncat.com. However, since a peak of 57.1 million users in May 2022, Facebook's audience has decreased slightly. Facebook’s user number issues have not just been limited to the United Kingdom, with figures released by the company highlighting issues in several key markets. There was a small growth in Europe from the first quarter of 2019 to the first quarter of 2020. The company counted 305 million daily active users (DAU) in Europe during the first quarter of 2020. Facebook United Kingdom key source of European revenue Facebook UK Limited generated approximately 211 million British pounds in revenue during 2015, a figure that skyrocketed  to 842 million British pounds in 2016. According to Facebook UK, this was the results of the company commencing advertiser reseller services in April 2016. In 2019, Facebook UK Limited revenue reached roughly one billion British pounds. In the third quarter of 2024, the company’s total European revenue reached over 9.49 billion U.S. dollars 

The number of Facebook users in Lithuania was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 0.03 million users (+1.86 percent). After the third consecutive increasing year, the Facebook user base is estimated to reach 1.64 million users and therefore a new peak in 2028. 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 is one of the most popular social networks in the United States and as of January 2025, 53.8 percent of U.S. Facebook users were women. Facebook usage in the United StatesThanks to its wide reach and vast range of products including Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, many internet users would find it hard to imagine an online experience without the company that arguably made social media mainstream. In 2021, 93 percent of the U.S. population were aware of Facebook, an all-time high and still improving on years of consistently high ranking in this area. In May 2024, Facebook had over 236 million unique visitors from the United States, making it the seventh most popular multi-platform web property in the United States. Facebook usage concernsDespite near universal Facebook awareness and wide-ranking adoption, many consumers are wary of the social network’s influence on their digital experience and life. In 2018, the company was plagued by scandals, ranging from being a tool in the alleged foreign influence of the U.S. elections in 2016, to being utilized in spreading misinformation by bad actors due to lax content policies, to the mishandling of user data. During a March 2018 survey, 50 percent of internet users in the United States stated that large digital platforms such as Facebook (and also Google and Twitter) should be regulated.

In the second quarter of 2021, 37.3 thousand U.S. advertisers invested in ads on Facebook, up from 20 thousand in the same period a year earlier. In 2020, Facebook, Inc. generated a whopping 84 billion dollars with advertising services on its various properties.