In January 2025, Instagram had almost 35 million users in the United Kingdom (UK). The largest share of Instagram users were individuals aged between 25 and 34 years old, at 29.7 percent. This was followed by the category of users aged 18 to 24 years. Individuals over 65 years old, were less likely to use the social media platform, making up the smallest share of Instagram users during this period. Leading social media in the UK According to figures based on approximately fifteen billion hits online per month, Facebook was the leading social media website in the UK as of November 2024, holding over 60.48 percent of the social media market share. This was followed by X (Twitter) and Instagram. The Pinterest website ranked fourth during that period, with a market share of 5.83 percent. Facebook: Leader in the UK The number of social network users in the UK experienced an increase of roughly 6.5 million users between 2018 and 2023. The share of female Facebook users is slightly higher than the number of male users. At a quarter of respondents, individuals aged between 25 and 34 years old made up the largest share of Facebook users in the UK. This was followed by roughly 19 percent of users within the 35 to 44 years old category. Facebook usage appeared to be the lowest among those aged 65 and older.

Instagram’s appeal in the United Kingdom is the strongest among women between 25 and 34 years, with 15.6 percent of the popular photo and video platform's demographic being women in this age group as of January 2025. Overall, 55 percent of Instagram's audience in the UK were women, while men engaging with Instagram were 45 percent of the total. Instagram in the United Kingdom In November 2024, Instagram counted over 34.7 million users in the United Kingdom. This represents an increase of 1.2 million from the corresponding month in 2023, when Instagram users in the country were approximately 33.5 million. Audiences of millions The leading British influencers have fan bases with millions of followers, a dream scenario for advertisers looking to direct brand messages quickly to massive audiences for less than advertising in traditional media. As of 2020, David Beckham was the United Kingdom’s most popular celebrity influencer with over 65 million followers, followed by singer Dua Lipa with a following of 58 million.

There were 35 120 000 Instagram users in United Kingdom in June 2023, which accounted for 50.8% of its entire population. The majority of them were women - 56.5%. People aged 25 to 34 were the largest user group (10 100 000). The highest difference between men and women occurs within people aged 25 to 34, where women lead by 4 600 000.

In June 2023 in the United Kingdom, there were approximately 1.8 million users of Meta's Facebook aged between 13 and 17 years. Additionally, Facebook Messenger had a total of 564 thousand users in the UK belonging to this age group. Overall, Meta's Instagram had over 1.5 million UK teenage users the platform in June 2023, accounting for around five percent of the platform's audience in the country.

In June 2023, there were over 1.5 million users of Meta's Instagram in the United Kingdom aged between 13 and 17 years. Of these users, over 894 thousand were female, accounting for roughly 59 percent of the social media platform's user base for this age group. Additionally, users age 13 to 17 years made up four percent of Instagram's user base in the UK.

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.

56.8% of the world’s total population is active on social media.

Gen Z and Millennials are the biggest social media users of all age groups.

The US has historically been the target country for Twitter since its launch in 2006. This is the full breakdown of Twitter users by country.

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.

Over 210 million people worldwide suffer from social media addiction.

Regional use of social media has a significant effect on the male and female social media statistics.

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.

As of January 2025, 28.3 percent of Instagram users in the United States were aged between 25 and 34 years, making up the platform’s largest audience in the country. Overall, the group with the second-highest usage was those aged 18 to 24 years, with 26.5 percent of users, followed by 19.4 percent that were aged 35 to 44 years. The age group that used Instagram the least was those older than 65 years, making up 5.8 percent of users, respectively. Popular social media platforms in the United States Instagram was the third most visited social media platform in the United States as of March 2024 across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices combined, accounting for 14.13 percent of all social media visits in the country. Despite Instagram’s popularity, Facebook remained the leading social media platform by far in the U.S., accounting for almost 50 percent of all social media visits. Pinterest and X (formerly Twitter) ranked second and fourth in terms of visits, with 21.2 percent and 10.91 percent of visits, respectively. Instagram’s global audience Instagram’s global popularity continues to surge, with no signs of slowing down. As of January 2024, the country with the largest Instagram audience was India with 362.9 million users, while the United States had the second-highest market with 169.65 million users, followed by Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey, respectively. As of April 2024, Instagram was the third most popular social network globally, reaching two billion monthly active users.

As of April 2024, around 16.5 percent of global active Instagram users were men between the ages of 18 and 24 years. More than half of the global Instagram population worldwide was aged 34 years or younger. Teens and social media As one of the biggest social networks worldwide, Instagram is especially popular with teenagers. As of fall 2020, the photo-sharing app ranked third in terms of preferred social network among teenagers in the United States, second to Snapchat and TikTok. Instagram was one of the most influential advertising channels among female Gen Z users when making purchasing decisions. Teens report feeling more confident, popular, and better about themselves when using social media, and less lonely, depressed and anxious. Social media can have negative effects on teens, which is also much more pronounced on those with low emotional well-being. It was found that 35 percent of teenagers with low social-emotional well-being reported to have experienced cyber bullying when using social media, while in comparison only five percent of teenagers with high social-emotional well-being stated the same. As such, social media can have a big impact on already fragile states of mind.

One of the biggest advantages of Twitter is the speed at which information can be passed around. People use Twitter primarily to get news and for entertainment. This is the breakdown of why people use Twitter today.

The use of social media platforms continues to increase in the United Kingdom (UK) and is predicted to do so for the foreseeable future. As of 2024, there are a total of 52.7 million social network users in the UK. The number of social media users in the UK is expected to reach 65 million by 2027. Facebook users in the United Kingdom Social media network Facebook, which recently rebranded as Meta in a move towards the metaverse, had 51.34 million users in the United Kingdom as of December 2021, a relatively small increase on the previous year of 0.3 million. Two years prior, the number of FB users in the UK was 44.86 million. Throughout 2021, Facebook’s user numbers declined, sinking to 49.35 in September, however, toward the end of the year, audience figures recovered. Furthermore, Facebook Messenger, Facebook’s instant messaging app, had a total of 35.71 million UK users at the end of 2021. The majority of UK Facebook users at the end of last year belonged to the 25 to 34 year age group which made up 25.1 percent of all users. Overall, 12.5 percent of audiences this age group were women and 12.7 percent were men. Popular social networks in the United Kingdom In 2021, social media app Instagram had a total of 28 million UK users. Instagram was most popular amongst 25 to 34 year olds, accounting for approximately a third of users. In addition, professional online networking platform LinkedIn also finds popularity amongst this demographic, with 57.2 percent of its users being between the ages of 25 and 34 years.

The number of Instagram users ranking is led by India with 331.94 million users, while the United States is following with 156.08 million users. In contrast, Seychelles is at the bottom of the ranking with 0.02 million users, showing a difference of 331.92 million users to India. User figures, shown here with regards to the platform instagram, 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).

During the survey period, it was found that 54 percent of the respondents in the United Kingdom (UK) used Instagram several times a day in the first quarter of 2020. A share of 12 percent of respondents reported using Instagram a few times a week.

In 2022, daily time spent on TikTok in the United Kingdom (UK) reached approximately 50 minutes, up by over 110 percent compared to 2019. In comparison, Facebook usage between 2020 to 2022 went down to approximately 43 minutes on a daily basis. In the examined time, Instagram engagement remained at around 30 minutes per day among UK users in the examined period.