Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass one billion registered accounts and currently sits at more than three billion monthly active users. Meta Platforms owns four of the biggest social media platforms, all with more than one billion monthly active users each: Facebook (core platform), WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. In the third quarter of 2023, Facebook reported around four billion monthly core Family product users. The United States and China account for the most high-profile social platforms Most top ranked social networks with more than 100 million users originated in the United States, but services like Chinese social networks WeChat, QQ or video sharing app Douyin have also garnered mainstream appeal in their respective regions due to local context and content. Douyin’s popularity has led to the platform releasing an international version of its network: a little app called TikTok. How many people use social media? The leading social networks are usually available in multiple languages and enable users to connect with friends or people across geographical, political, or economic borders. In 2025, social networking sites are estimated to reach 5.42 billion users and these figures are still expected to grow as mobile device usage and mobile social networks increasingly gain traction in previously underserved markets.

As of February 2025, two billion users were accessing the WhatsApp messenger on a monthly basis. The app’s reach in usage penetration is particularly strong in markets outside the United States, and it is one of the most popular mobile social apps worldwide. WeChat amassed over 1.38 billion users, and Facebook Messenger amassed around 947 million users worldwide. Instant messaging is a type of online chat which offers real-time text transmission via internet. Since the appearance of the smartphone and the subsequent explosion of mobile apps, low-cost or free chat and social messaging apps have proven themselves as a cheap alternative to operator-based text messaging via SMS. Many messenger apps offer features such as group chats, the exchange of graphics, video and even audio messages as well as stickers or emoticons.

Mobile games make up the majority of video games released each year, with thousands of new additions to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store every year. By the mid-2010s, mobile games had...

There are currently over 1.5 billion active users on TikTok worldwide.

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.

In May 2025, Tencent’s super app WeChat remained the most popular mobile app in China with around **** billion monthly active users (MAUs). Its older instant messaging sibling QQ climbed to second, with about *** million MAUs. Messaging, e-commerce, utility, and video streaming apps occupied the most spots in the top 20 list. What makes WeChat so attractive to users? WeChat is a multi-functional app beyond messaging and social networking. From mobile payment and taxi-hailing to making appointments and holiday planning, it provides almost everything to every mobile user in China. WeChat users are from various age groups from teenagers to old adults. In general, most WeChat users spent at least ** minutes per day on the app. In fact, many companies also use this "super app" to advertise their brands, and its business version Wecom to communicate internally. The promising future of short video apps The rise of short video entertainment is another important trend in the world’s second most populous country, especially in rural regions. ByteDance’s Douyin, which TikTok was cloned from, is one of the key players in the Chinese short video arena. Founded in 2016, Douyin had overtaken its imminent rival Kuaishou (Kwai) as China’s top short video app within 4 years. As the demand for rural life live streaming has been accelerating, industry experts expected that Chinese short form video market would continue to grow to reach a total revenue of *** billion yuan by 2024.

Regional TikTok user statistics differentiate significantly. Each major region has also experienced growth a different times.

Artificial intelligence has taken over the app world, with thousands of apps integrating AI and the top AI app developers receiving hundred billion dollar valuations. Generative AI, in the form of...

TikTok has 136 million monthly active users in the US alone.

TikTok has a significantly larger female user base globally.

The average adult TikTok user in America spends 33 minutes per day on the app.

Facebook probably needs no introduction; nonetheless, here is a quick history of the company. The world’s biggest and most-famous social network was launched by Mark Zuckerberg while he was a...

In 2020, TikTok brought in $33.4 billion in revenue.

Teenagers make up the largest group of active users on TikTok.

A survey done in March 2022 found that 31% of Republican voters said they would use Truth Social often and 14% said they plan to use the platform a lot.

In 2021, there were 1.21 billion monthly active users of Meta's Instagram, making up over 28 percent of the world's internet users. By 2025, it has been forecast that there will be 1.44 billion monthly active users of the social media platform, which would account for 31.2 percent of global internet users.

How popular is Instagram?

Instagram, as of January 2022, was the fourth most popular social media platform in the world in terms of user numbers. YouTube and WhatsApp ranked in second and third place, respectively, whilst Facebook remained the most popular, with almost three billion monthly active users worldwide.

India had the largest number of Instagram users as of January 2022, with a total of over 230 million users in the country. The second-largest Instagram audience could be found in the United States, with almost 160 million people subscribing to the photo and video sharing app.

Gen Z and Instagram

As of September 2021, Gen Z users in the United States spent an average of five hours per week on Instagram. Although Instagram ranked third in terms of hours per week spent on the platform, Gen Z users spent considerably more time on TikTok, amounting to a weekly average of over 10 hours being spent on the mobile-first video app.

Most followed accounts on Instagram

As of May 2022, Instagram’s own account had 504.37 million followers. In terms of celebrities, Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (@chistiano) had over 440.41 million followers on the social network. Moreover, the average media value of an Instagram post by Ronaldo was over 985,000 U.S. dollars.

The most liked post on Instagram as of May 2022 was Photo of an Egg, which was posted in 2019 by the account @world_record_egg. Photo of an Egg has not only exceeded 55 million likes on the platform, but it also has nearly 3.5 million comments, and the account itself has over 4.5 million Instagram followers. After mysterious posts published by the account, World Record Egg revealed itself as part of a mental health campaign aimed at the difficulties and demands of using social media.

You might be surprised how much Truth Social is worth based on its small number of users.

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.

As of February 2025, the United States was the region with the largest TikTok audience by far, with almost ****** million users engaging with the popular social video platform. Indonesia followed, with around ***** million TikTok users. Brazil came in third, with almost ***** million users on TikTok watching short-videos. From Reels to Shorts: social short video takes the internet Between 2021 and 2022 some of the most popular social media platforms have been adding short-video features on the heels of TikTok’s popularity. YouTube Shorts, which rolled out to the global market in June 2021, reached *** billion monthly active logged-in users in 2023. In comparison, Instagram’s short-video format Reels, which launched in August 2020, presented a higher view rate than regular videos on the platform between June 2021 and June 2022, as well as a higher likes rate than other content types on Instagram. TikTok business model TikTok is owned by the Beijing-based ByteDance, along with the short-video app Douyin (TikTok’s version for the Chinese market), video platform Xigua, and popular news app Toutiao. While the products intended for domestic market consumption operate in the Chinese digital ecosystem and have a plurality of established monetization methods such as a live-shopping events hosted by famous influencers, TikTok’s main revenue stream comes from online advertising. In 2022, TikTok was estimated to have generated around **** billion U.S. dollars worldwide via online advertising.

As of the first quarter of 2025, photo and video sharing app Snapchat had 460 million daily active users worldwide, up from 460 million global DAU in the fourth quarter of 2024. The app has seen steady increases in daily active users since the beginning of 2019. Snapchat is relevant for teenagers Originally launched in 2011, Snapchat has become one of the most popular social messaging and photo sharing apps worldwide; making its CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel one of the world’s richest social media entrepreneurs. With almost 800 million active users as of April 2024, Snapchat easily ranks among the most popular social networks worldwide. According to U.S. teenagers in fall 2023, Snapchat is the second most important social network of their generation, ahead of photo sharing competitor Instagram and other networks such as Twitter or Facebook. Overall, 48 percent of U.S. internet users aged 15 to 25 years were reportedly using Snapchat, the highest usage reach among any age group. When it comes to user satisfaction with social media, Snapchat’s performance is fair to middling. According to recent survey data, the social app scored 72 out of 100 points on a consumer satisfaction scale, ranking ahead of Twitter and Facebook but behind Pinterest and eternal rival Instagram.