Meta's family of apps continues to dominate the global social media landscape, with 3.43 billion daily active users across its core products in the first 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 362 million users, followed by the United States with 169 million and Brazil with 134 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 175 million on average. Meanwhile, WhatsApp has solidified its position as the leading communication channel for global smartphone users, reaching an estimated three billion unique active users worldwide in June 2024.

During the fourth quarter of 2023, the number of daily active users on Facebook reached 2.1 billion, a minor increase on the previous quarter. When compared with the number of daily active users in the final quarter of 2022, the platform has gained around 100 million users. Facebook’s penetration rate for the United States in 2023 was 72.13 percent, up from 71.43 percent in 2022. The social network’s audience reach is projected to stand at 75.79 percent by 2027.

Most popular social media websites

As of May 2021, Facebook was the most used social media site in the United States, accounting for 71.8 percent of all social media visits. Ranking in second place was Pinterest with 12.4 percent, followed by Twitter and Instagram, with 9.15 percent and 3.82 percent, respectively. Although other sites remain popular, Facebook’s number of visits made it undoubtably the leading social media platform in terms of social media site visits.

For Generation Z and Millennials in the United States, Facebook was one of the least popular platforms used to connect with others. Gen Z and Millennials preferred video sharing platforms, specifically Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.

Meta’s revenue

Facebook Inc was renamed as Meta in 2021, in a strategic step toward the metaverse. Meta Platforms is now the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp amongst others, together being known as Meta’s Family of Apps.

Meta’s annual revenue for 2021 was 117.92 billion U.S. dollars, up from 85.97 billion in 2020. Within a decade, the company has increased its annual revenue by approximately 114 billion U.S. dollars. In the most recent fiscal year, Meta’s Family of Apps were responsible for over 115 billion U.S. dollars’ worth of Meta’s revenue.

Between ************ and ************, the number of global Android users who engaged with chat app Messenger daily were *** million on average. In comparison, iOS daily active users (DAU) of Facebook Messenger were *** million on average in the examined year, with a peak of ***** million DAU in *************. The Meta-branded chat app saw more active users from mobile devices services by the Google Play Store.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, about 308 million people in Europe used Meta's Facebook on a daily basis, up slightly from the previous quarter, yet with a year-over-year increase of around four million users. Overall, the number of DAU in Europe has remained relatively stable since the beginning of 2020.

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...

During the fourth quarter of 2023, Meta stated that 3.98 billion people were using at least one of the company's core products (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, or Messenger) each month. This was a slight increase of monthly active users (MAU) when compared to the previous quarter. Daily active users (DAU) of Meta's core products also saw year-over-year increases.

Between September 15 and October 11, 2024, the United States presented the highest number of daily active users (DAU) of chat app Messenger on the iOS operative system. With over ** million DAU, the Meta-branded messaging app saw in the U.S. its main market on iOS. Vietnam ranked second, with around ** million Facebook Messenger DAU on iOS, while Egypt ranked third with approximately ***** million DAU of the popular instant messaging app as of the examined period.

Between September 15 and October 11, 2024, India was the market with the highest number of daily active users (DAU) of the Facebook Messenger app from the Google Play Store, with over **** million users. Vietnam ranked second, with around ** million DAU among Android users, while Egypt ranked third, with approximately ** million users engaging with the Meta-branded platform on a daily basis as of the examined period.

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.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, Meta's Facebook had 408 million monthly active users (MAUs) in Europe. During the same quarter of 2022, the platform amassed around 407 million MAUs in Europe.

Monthly active users worldwide

In the fourth quarter of 2008 Facebook provided a service for just 100 million active users. Thirteen years on, as of the second quarter of 2021 that number had risen to an astounding 2.89 billion MAUs. The number of MAUs has never taken a backward step during the examined period.

 Growth outside of Europe and North America 

Facebook continues to focus on regions outside of Europe and North America, and the reward of this effort can be seen in areas such as the Asia Pacific region, where the company has seen significant gains in terms of growing the active user base. Facebook reached over 788 million daily active users (DAU) in the second quarter of 2021.

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).

In the first quarter of 2022, Facebook Messenger reported the largest share of daily active users in the United States among the leading streaming apps examined. The Meta-owned chat and call platform had a share of 52 percent of U.S. users engaging with the app daily, down from 58 percent in the same quarter in 2020. WhatsApp was the second most-used app, with 26 percent daily users share in the latest reported period, while daily active users on Discord experienced a modest increase between 2020 and 2021.

Users aged ******** years old made up the largest audience of Facebook in the United Kingdom in January 2025, accounting for **** percent of all users. Overall, Facebook users aged ******** 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 ***** million in September 2018, according to napoleoncat.com. However, since a peak of **** 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 *** 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 *** million British pounds in revenue during 2015, a figure that skyrocketed  to *** 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 *********** British pounds. In the third quarter of 2024, the company’s total European revenue reached over **** billion U.S. dollars 

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 the fourth quarter of 2023, Facebook had a combined 272 million monthly active users (MAU) in the United States and Canada, up by one million users when compared to the previous quarter.

Facebook user data – additional information

Facebook’s data use policy or privacy policy as it is also known, highlights the company’s guidelines concerning user privacy, information and how they are likely to be used. It also highlights the difference between public and private data and the websites and third part apps which are integrated into its services.

Federal agencies and governments have the right to request user data from Facebook. This issue was highlighted in late 2014, when Facebook came under attack from the British press for not releasing relevant information on the men responsible for the supposed pre planned murder on the British soldier Lee Rigby. In the second half of 2020, the number of user data requests issued to Facebook from the United States amounted to 61,262. This figure was higher than any other country, and India ranked second with 40,300 data requests.

As of February 2025, India had a total of 413.85 million Instagram users, the largest Instagram audience in the world. The United States had 171.7 million users, and Brazil had 140.7 million. Indonesia, Turkey, and Japan ranked in fourth, fifth and sixth position, respectively. Kazakhstan is the leading country for Instagram audience reach, with 86.2 percent of the population using the social media service. Turkey came in second, with a penetration rate of 85.5 percent and Uruguay ranked third, with 87.1 percent, followed closely by the UAE, Brazil, and Bahrain. 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 March 2025, Instagram was the fourth most visited social media service in the United States, after Facebook, Pinterest and X. 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 in 2021, 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 January 2025, roughly 28.3 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 April 2024 with over 672 million followers. Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) had over 628 million followers on the platform, while the Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi (@leomessi) had over 502 million followers. The Instagram accounts of the American singer and actress Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) and the media personality and makeup mogul Kylie Jenner (@kyliejenner) had over 400 million followers each.

India was the leading market of Telegram by app downloads. Throughout 2024, Indian users installed the messaging app approximately 100 million times. Russia ranked second, with over **** million downloads over the observed period, while U.S. users installed the app **** million times. Brazil recorded the largest number of downloads among Latin American countries. France and Germany were the leading markets in Western Europe. Telegram usage in India Telegram had the fourth-highest penetration rate among social media platforms in India, following WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. In the third quarter of 2023, more than ** percent of Indian active social media users reported having used Telegram over the past month. However, user engagement on Telegram in India was significantly lower than on other major networks. On average, Indian users spent *** hours per month on the platform in 2021, which was ** times shorter than on WhatsApp. Growing popularity of Telegram As of July 2024, Telegram had *** million active users around the globe, having multiplied its audience tenfold since December 2014. Telegram recorded a sharp increase in global downloads in the first quarter of 2021, when WhatsApp, its competitor owned by Meta, updated its privacy policy. In March 2022, Telegram further increased its popularity in Russia after Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram were banned in the country. The number of daily active users (DAU) of Telegram nationwide grew by ** percent between January and March 2022.

Russia had nearly ********** Instagram users in January 2025. The user count steadily increased until January 2022 when it reached over **********. In mid-March 2022, the social media platform was blocked in the country, as its parent company Meta was claimed an extremist organization.