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.

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.

Meta's family of apps continues to dominate the global social media landscape, with 3.35 billion daily active users across its core products in the fourth quarter of 2024. This represents a slight increase from the previous quarter and underscores the company's enduring influence in connecting people worldwide. The steady growth in user numbers has been accompanied by rising revenue, with Meta's average revenue per user reaching 49.63 U.S. dollars in 2024, up from 44.60 U.S. dollars in 2023. 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.

As of the fourth quarter of 2024, Meta's Threads had approximately 275 million monthly active users (MAU), up from 200 million MAU in the third quarter of 2024. Just 24 hours after the release of Threads in July 2023, 30 million people were using the new network from Meta Platforms.

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.

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.

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 2022, Social networking sites are estimated to reach 3.96 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.

In May 2022, YouTube was France's most used online network, with 47.91 million monthly active users. Meta-owned Facebook and WhatsApp ranked second and third, with 47.89 and 37.36 million monthly active users, respectively. In addition, Pinterest and Twitter each had around 17 million monthly active users in the country.

As of January 2024, micro-blogging platform X (formerly Twitter) was more popular with men than women, with male audiences accounting for 60.9 percent of global users. Additionally, users between the ages of 25 and 34 were particularly active on X/Twitter, making up more than 38 percent of users worldwide. How many people use? Although X/Twitter holds its status as a mainstream social media site, it falls short in comparison to other well-known platforms in terms of user numbers. As of early 2022, X/Twitter had around 436 million monthly active users, whilst Meta’s Facebook reached almost three billion MAU. Overall, the United States is home to over 105 million X/Twitter users, making up Twitter’s largest audience base, followed by Japan, India, and the United Kingdom, respectively. How is Twitter used? X/Twitter is utilized by its audience for many different purposes. In May 2021, over 80 percent of high-volume X/Twitter users (defined as users who tweet around 20 times per month) in the United States reported using the platform for entertainment, whilst 78 percent said they used it as a way to stay informed. High-volume X/Twitter users were far more likely to use the service as a means of expressing their opinion. Furthermore, in 2022, over half of social media users in the U.S. used Twitter as a news resource.  

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).

As of January 2024, 56.8 percent Facebook's audience were male and 43.2 percent were female. By the end of 2023, Facebook had over three billion monthly active users (MAU).

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.

In October 2022, Meta's Horizon World VR gaming platform claimed about 200 thousand active users, down from 280 thousand active users in February of the same year. The original target of 500 thousand active users at year-end was adjusted to a goal of a user base of 280 thousand. Expansion of the platform is currently limited due to small regional availability (Horizon Worlds is only available in seven countries) and the necessity of either an Oculus Rift S or a Meta Quest 2 VR headset.

Truth Social, the Trump-owned social media platform, started trading publicly on March 26, 2024. The social network has fewer users and a lower valuation than Meta Platforms, X (formerly Twitter), and Pinterest did at their initial public offerings. The market capitalization of Truth Social when it went public was estimated to be six billion dollars, with an estimated five million monthly active users.

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.

In January 2025, there were around 46.6 million Facebook users in Germany, accounting for 56.9 percent of the total population. This number shows an increase from the first month of the previous examined year in January 2024, the platform saw 45.1 million users in Germany. In April 2023, Facebook users in Germany peaked, as 47,578,000 people were using the social media platform in the country. In Germany, Facebook's largest audience was aged between 25 and 34 years.

As of September 2023, 29 percent of Facebook users in the United States were aged 30 to 39 years, while a further 29 percent of users were aged 50 to 64 years, making these demographics the biggest audiences of the online network in the country. Meta’s Instagram was also popular among users aged 30 to 39 years, who accounted for 32 percent of the audience of the photo-based platform, while those aged 18 to 29 years accounted for another third of the network’s U.S. users. Overall, TikTok and Snapchat were the most popular social media platforms amongst younger audiences, while LinkedIn was the least used platform by those aged 18 to 29 in the United States as of 2023.

The social media market in the United States

The number of social media users in the United States has shown continuous growth in the past years, and it is forecast to continue increasing to reach 342 million users in 2029. As of 2023, the social network user penetration in the United States amounted to an impressive 91.56 percent, meaning that more than nine in ten people in the country engaged with online platforms. Furthermore, Facebook was by far the most popular social media platform in the United States, accounting for 45 percent of all social media visits in 2023, followed by Pinterest with 21.2 percent of visits.

The global social media landscape

As of April 2024, 5.07 billion people were social media users, accounting for 62.6 percent of the world’s population. Northern Europe was the region with the highest social media penetration rate with a reach of 80.2 percent, followed by Western Europe with 78.2 percent and Eastern Asia 74.9 percent. In contrast, less than one in ten people in Middle Africa used social networks. Facebook’s popularity is not limited to the United States: this network leads the market on a global scale, and it accumulated more than three billion monthly active users (MAU) as of 2024, which is far more any other social media platform. 272014 YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp followed, all with two billion or more MAU.

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.

The global number of KakaoTalk users in was forecast to decrease between 2024 and 2028 by in total 0.7 million users. This overall decrease does not happen continuously, notably not in 2026 and 2027. The KakaoTalk user base is estimated to amount to 48.7 million users in 2028. Notably, the number of KakaoTalk users of was continuously increasing over the past years.User figures, here concerning the platform kakaoTalk, 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).

La cifra de usuarios mensuales activos de Facebook prevista para el año 2025 es de aproximadamente 2,08 millones. Este valor representa un incremento de alrededor de 10 millones respecto a los usuarios previstos para 2023.