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.

How many active users are on Instagram? In 2023, the photo sharing site is projected to reach 127.2 million monthly active users in the United States, up from 114.6 million users in 2020.

Social network reach

The internet has brought about many changes in how people around the world communicate, especially through one of its most powerful inventions: social media. According to a recent study, internet users worldwide spend an average of over 145 minutes per day on one of the many social media platforms. Such websites and apps are increasingly used not just for social sharing, but also as means to building reputation, finding career opportunities or monetary income. As of January 2021, an estimated 54 percent of the world’s population was using social networking, with West and Northern Europe having the highest penetration rate – 79 percent of the respective region's populations. Eastern Asia placed first in a global ranking of mobile social media penetration according to geographical region.

Industry leaders

Facebook is by far the most popular social network with over 2.8 billion global monthly active users but Instagram, the mobile photo and video-sharing application launched in 2010, is quickly growing in popularity. Instagram was bought by Facebook back in 2012. As of June 2018, there are an estimated 1 billion Instagram monthly active users worldwide. There are an estimated 115 million Instagram users in the United States alone, a number which is forecast to grow to over 127 million in 2023.

According to the company, the secret to their success is their unique visual storytelling approach to social media. Users registered with the platform can upload pictures and videos, to which they can also apply filters, frames and other effects. They can also attach captions, tags of other people/accounts, whether friends, celebrities or companies and hashtags, which make the media easy to find if one is looking for specific subjects. There are a reported 60 million photos uploaded to Instagram every day.

According to data provided by NapoleonCat, around 4.5 million South Korean women aged between 25 and 34 years old were using Instagram as of September 2024. InstagramAs of September 2024, around 24.22 million Instagram users were South Korean. Instagram’s popularity is growing, while the popularity of Facebook is declining, especially among younger users. According to a survey among South Korean Instagram users, the majority stated that they used it to check out others’ posts, while around half of them answered they were looking for posts under specific hashtags. Social media usageSocial media is increasingly important for South Koreans and almost every South Korean aged between 20 and 29 years old is using social media. A different survey found that the most preferred content was humorous content, as well as current issues and trends. Nevertheless, more than three quarters of respondents were using social media for its original purpose: socializing.

How many people use Instagram?

Instagram is a social media app which focuses on photo and video sharing. It is owned by Facebook, which recently rebranded as Meta, in a move towards the metaverse. As of December 2021, Instagram reached a new milestone of 2 billion active users worldwide. The platform previously reached 1 billion users in June 2018.

Users aged 25 to 34 years made up the biggest Instagram user group by age worldwide, followed by 18 to 24 year olds. Overall, men accounted for 51.6 percent of global Instagram users.

Most popular Instagram accounts and content

Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo was the most followed person on Instagram as of 2021, with approximately 315 million followers. Ranked in second and third position were the Rock and Ariana Grande, both having over 250 million followers each.

It’s not only athletes and actors who drive the views on Instagram though. Instagram has long since become a medium for people and communities to spread their messages, and in the past two years, social activists and educators have used Instagram for their movements. Political and educational accounts generate high engagement rates with their content. Posts from political accounts receive an average engagement rate of 2.74 percent and educational posts receive an average of 2.56 percent.

Social media usage worldwide

There are 3.4 billion social media users worldwide and this is expected to increase to 4.41 billion by 2025. Instagram is most popular in India with a total of 201.1 million users, followed by the U.S. with 157.1 million and Brazil with 114.9 million active users. Instagram is the fourth most popular social media site in the world, after Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp, respectively.

As of October 2021, Brunei was the country with the highest Instagram audience reach with 92 percent of the population using the platform. This was followed by Guam with 79.2 percent and the Cayman Islands with 78.8 percent audience reach.

As of October 2021, Facebook had almost 3 billion users worldwide. The penetration rate for Facebook in the United States in 2021 was 70.59 percent and it is expected to reach 76.87 percent by 2026.

As of January 2024, India had a total of 362 million Instagram users, the largest Instagram audience in the world. The United States had 169 million users, and Brazil had 134 million. Indonesia, Turkey, and Japan ranked in fourth, fifth and sixth position, respectively. Brunei is the leading country for Instagram audience reach, with 92 percent of the population using the social media service. Guam came in second, with a penetration rate of 79.2 percent and the Cayman Islands ranked third, with 78.8 percent, followed closely by Kazakhstan, Iceland and Montenegro. It took Instagram 11.2 years to reach the milestone of 2 billion monthly active users worldwide. WhatsApp, also owned by Meta, took 11 years, whilst Facebook took 13.3 years and YouTube took just over 14 years. Instagram’s demographics in the United States As of May 2021, Instagram was the fourth most visited social media service in the United States, after Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. Out of TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, TikTok was the most used of all three platforms by Generation Z. Overall, 57 percent of Gen Z social media users used Instagram, down from 61 percent in 2020 and 64 percent in 2019. Instagram finds most popularity with those in the 25 to 34 year age group, and as of December 2021, roughly a third of all users in the United States belonged to this age group. The social media app was also more likely to be used by women. Most followed accounts on Instagram Instagram’s official account had the most followers as of February 2022 with over 470 million followers. Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) had over 401 million followers on the platform and media personality and makeup mogul Kylie Jenner (@kyliejenner) had over 309 million followers. National Geographic (@natgeo) had over 206.9 million followers, sharing educational content through its renowned photojournalism.

In 2023, Instagram influencers with 1,000 to 10,000 followers accounted for 76.86 percent of influencer accounts worldwide. The second most popular group was that of micro-influencers with 10,000 to 50,000 subscribers, accounting for 18.23 percent of all influencers. Mid-tier influencers with 50,000 to 500,000 followers represented 4.56 percent of the total, while mega-influencers and celebrities with more than one million subscribers accounted for 0.16 percent.

In 2024, the average Instagram post from an account with under 500 followers reached around 6,500 Instagram users, up from 1,405 in 2023. Huge accounts, with over 50,001 followers reach an average of 49,932 thousand users in 2024, down from 56,191 users in 2023.

Cristiano Ronaldo has one of the most popular Instagram accounts as of April 2024. The Portuguese footballer is the most-followed person on the photo sharing app platform with 628 million followers. Instagram's own account was ranked first with roughly 672 million followers. How popular is Instagram? Instagram is a photo-sharing social networking service that enables users to take pictures and edit them with filters. The platform allows users to post and share their images online and directly with their friends and followers on the social network. The cross-platform app reached one billion monthly active users in mid-2018. In 2020, there were over 114 million Instagram users in the United States and experts project this figure to surpass 127 million users in 2023. Who uses Instagram? Instagram audiences are predominantly young – recent data states that almost 60 percent of U.S. Instagram users are aged 34 years or younger. Fall 2020 data reveals that Instagram is also one of the most popular social media for teens and one of the social networks with the biggest reach among teens in the United States. Celebrity influencers on Instagram Many celebrities and athletes are brand spokespeople and generate additional income with social media advertising and sponsored content. Unsurprisingly, Ronaldo ranked first again, as the average media value of one of his Instagram posts was 985,441 U.S. dollars.

In 2024, Instagram reels from accounts with over 50,001 followers reached over 67,000 Instagram users, down from approximately 73,000 users in 2023. Reels from accounts with between 10,001 and 50,000 followers reached around 9,650 people in 2024.

In 2023, Instagram Stories were by far the most common type of content posted on the social media platform. Overall, accounts with 50 thousand to 45 million followers posted an average of 130 Instagram Stories per week, as well as 28 posts, and 19 Reels.

The NFL is composed of 32 teams spread across the United States. Over the past years, the NFL has gained significant popularity both domestically and abroad, which has increased its fan base and number of followers worldwide. In 2019, the New England Patriots had around 4.1 million followers on Instagram worldwide.

The statistic depicts the number of Instagram followers of football clubs in the English Premier League in November 2019. At this time Manchester United had the most Instagram followers at approximately 32.18 million.

The Major League Baseball is a North American sports organization comprising two leagues with a total of 30 teams: the National League and the American League. Over the past years, MLB has gained significant popularity, which has increased its fan base and number of followers worldwide. In 2019, the New York Yankees had around 2.49 million followers on Instagram worldwide.

As of June 2023, there were 177 thousand influencers in the United States that had 10 to 50 thousand followers on Instagram. Additionally, there were over five thousand influencers on the popular photo and video sharing app who had over one million followers on the app in the examined period.

According to a July 2019 report, there were 11.8 million internet users in Canada used Instagram via any device at least once per month in 2018. By 2023 the number of Instagram users in Canada is projected to reach 14.3 million.

A July 2020 study on the photo-sharing social media site Instagram revealed that video posts got the highest number of comments, with a median of 11.1 comments per video post. Additionally, carousel posts received the second-highest median engagement with a median of 7.99 comments per carousel post.

In 2020, the majority of Portugese Instagram influencers at 48.5 percent had between 5 to 20 thousand followers. A quarter were 'nano influencers' with between 1 to 5 thousand followers, and 22.2 had between 20 to 100 thousand followers. 'Mega influencers' or celebrities with over 1 million followers made up a mere 0.13 percent of all influencers in the country.

As of June 7th 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden's Instagram account @joebiden had over 18 million followers. There was a steep jump in the number of followers after January 20th when Biden's inauguration took place.

Joe Biden is a member of the Democratic Party and the 46th and current president of the United States.

As of April 2024, almost 32 percent of global Instagram audiences were aged between 18 and 24 years, and 30.6 percent of users were aged between 25 and 34 years. Overall, 16 percent of users belonged to the 35 to 44 year age group. Instagram users With roughly one billion monthly active users, Instagram belongs to the most popular social networks worldwide. The social photo sharing app is especially popular in India and in the United States, which have respectively 362.9 million and 169.7 million Instagram users each. Instagram features One of the most popular features of Instagram is Stories. Users can post photos and videos to their Stories stream and the content is live for others to view for 24 hours before it disappears. In January 2019, the company reported that there were 500 million daily active Instagram Stories users. Instagram Stories directly competes with Snapchat, another photo sharing app that initially became famous due to it’s “vanishing photos” feature. As of the second quarter of 2021, Snapchat had 293 million daily active users.

This statistic shows the number of Instagram followers of AS Roma between January 18th and February 18th, 2021. Overall, the Instagram account of this Serie A club registered 3,583,084 followers as of February 18th.