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.

As of January 2025, Facebook accounted for around 67 percent of the social media market across Asia. Comparatively, Instagram accounted for about 14 percent of the social media market in Asia. Meta Platforms, Inc Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook, Inc., is a global technology conglomerate that owns a vast social media portfolio, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Facebook remains one of the world’s most popular social networks, connecting users for sharing content and building communities. Instagram focuses on photo and video sharing, including features like Stories and Reels. In 2024, Meta’s annual revenue reached 164.5 billion U.S. dollars, with most of its revenue coming from advertising. Meta generated approximately 160 billion U.S. dollars in revenue from advertisements in that year. Meta’s market revenue and user base in APAC In 2024, Meta’s revenue from the Asia-Pacific region amounted to nearly 33 billion U.S. dollars. The growing mobile-first internet user base in Asia continues to drive engagement on Meta's platforms, solidifying its dominance in the region. Asian countries such as India and Indonesia have some of the highest numbers of Facebook users globally. India also leads globally in Instagram users, reflecting the region's significant contribution to Meta's success.

In January 2025, X, formerly known as Twitter, held a market share of more than 58 percent in Hong Kong's social media scene in terms of pageviews across all devices, followed by YouTube and Facebook. The American social news and discussion website Reddit has gained traction since the anti-government protests in the city in 2020. Facebook is losing ground A few years before 2017, Facebook controlled over 80 percent of the social media arena in Hong Kong. The drastic change started in 2018, when the networking site lost nearly 11 percentage points and another 19 percentage points in the following year. For many Gen Z and Millennials in the financial hub, Instagram became the favorite social media platform and YouTube was used more often than Facebook. Facebook was still the second place to go after Instagram for product research, it has been losing its appeal among young users and advertisers. Platforms claiming the new spots When it came to advertising audience size, X took the lead. YouTube came in second, however, its ad reach in Hong Kong was among the lowest in the Asia-Pacific region. In comparison, the fourth placeholder Instagram has been picking up steam, reaching 51.6 percent of internet users in Hong Kong. However, the biggest industry threat was TikTok, the most downloaded social media app in Hong Kong as of the time of writing. TikTok’s rising popularity among teenage users may probably change the game of video consumption.

Social media usage in Romania continues to evolve, with Facebook and WhatsApp dominating the landscape in 2025. These platforms, were used by nearly 87 percent of Romanian social media users, while Instagram and TikTok have also gained significant traction, reaching about six in ten users. This widespread adoption reflects the growing importance of social media in Romanian daily life and communication. Is Facebook losing popularity? Facebook maintains its stronghold in Romania despite recent fluctuations in user numbers. The platform reached a peak of 13.03 million users in March 2022, showing growth of almost 500,000 accounts from the previous year. However, by the end of 2024, the number of Facebook users in Romania had slightly decreased to 12.34 million. This minor decline hasn't significantly impacted Facebook's position as the most-liked social media platform, with 27 percent of users naming it their favorite, followed by WhatsApp at 25.9 percent. X-Men - gender disparities on social media The social media landscape in Romania reveals interesting demographic trends across platforms. Pinterest stands out with a predominantly female user base, boasting 70.7 percent female ad reach. In contrast, X has the highest male-dominated ad reach at 73.6 percent, highlighting the diverse appeal of different platforms. Additionally, social media plays a crucial role in brand research, with 67.9 percent of users utilizing any social media platform for this purpose, while only 4.7 percent rely on micro-blogs like X for brand information. This underscores the varied ways Romanians engage with social media for both personal and commercial purposes.

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.

In February 2025, there were 13 million social media users in Romania. The most liked social media platform was Facebook - 27 percent, followed by WhatsApp - 25.9 percent. Viber and Skype had the fewest respondents who said it was their favorite social media platform - only 0.2 percent.

In 2021, messaging and video sharing platform Snapchat was more popular than TikTok among Gen Z users in the United States. TikTok counted around 37 million users who were born between 1997 and 2012, while Instagram reported around 33 million users in the same period. Snapchat, which counted 42 million Gen Z users, is projected to reach 49.5 million users in the examined demographic by 2025. Overall, platforms such as Pinterest, Twitter and Reddit had significantly less users amongst this age group.

In March 2023, Facebook accounted for 45 percent of all social media site visits in the United States, confirming its position as the leading social media website by far. Other social media platforms, despite their popularity, had to make do with smaller shares of visits across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices combined. Pinterest ranked second with 21 percent of all U.S. social media site visits, while Instagram accounted for 14 percent of the total visits in the country. Additionally, the U.S. is home to the third largest social media audience worldwide.

Facebook: mobile vs desktop usage

At the beginning of 2022, around 81 percent of Facebook users across the globe were using the platform’s social networking services exclusively via mobile phone, while only 1.5 percent reported using their desktop or laptop devices. In October 2021, three Facebook Inc. products occupied the leading positions as most downloaded social networking apps on the Apple App Store in the United States. Facebook’s social media platform ranked first with nearly 2.5 million downloads, while Facebook-owned instant-messaging services Messenger and WhatsApp followed with 2.1 million and 1.4 million downloads respectively.

Social media evolution

Between 2012 and 2020, the daily time spent on social networks worldwide experienced a constant increase, with users reaching an average of 145 minutes per day in 2019 and maintaining the same engagement levels throughout 2020. However, users’ favorite platforms have changed since 2019, and the power balance appears to be shifting further from Facebook’s market dominance. Not only Facebook’s user growth rate is estimated to slow down in the next years, but users belonging to Generation Z appear to prefer video-first social platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.

Facebook's market share in Taiwan's social media arena has been falling. As of January 2025, the flagship product of Meta held less than 50 percent of the social media market in Taiwan across all devices. X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram covered about a third of the market together.

A global survey conducted in the third quarter of 2024 found that the main reason for using social media was to keep in touch with friends and family, with over 50.8 percent of social media users saying this was their main reason for using online networks. Overall, 39 percent of social media users said that filling spare time was their main reason for using social media platforms, whilst 34.5 percent of respondents said they used it to read news stories. Less than one in five users were on social platforms for the reason of following celebrities and influencers. The most popular social network Facebook dominates the social media landscape. The world's most popular social media platform turned 20 in February 2024, and it continues to lead the way in terms of user numbers. As of February 2025, the social network had over three billion global users. YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp follow, but none of these well-known brands can surpass Facebook’s audience size. Moreover, as of the final quarter of 2023, there were almost four billion Meta product users. Ever-evolving social media usage The utilization of social media remains largely gratuitous; however, companies have been encouraging users to become paid subscribers to reduce dependence on advertising profits. Meta Verified entices users by offering a blue verification badge and proactive account protection, among other things. X (formerly Twitter), Snapchat, and Reddit also offer users the chance to upgrade their social media accounts for a monthly free.

By 2025, it is estimated that Facebook is going to remain as the most used social media in Latin America, although reaching its slowest growth rate so far in 2022. TikTok was expected to have the biggest growth rate in the region, competing but not outnumbering with Instagram, while becoming two times bigger than Twitter and 3.5 times larger than Snapchat.

In the third quarter of 2023, nearly 75 percent of the internet users in Morocco used Facebook each month. Instagram was the second most popular social media platform in the country, as it was used by roughly 70 percent of the people. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger followed, with a share of 60.8 percent and 58.3 percent, respectively. Social media users keep increasing With the rising internet penetration rate and mobile internet adoption, the use of social media has increased in Morocco in recent years. In 2022, social media users in the country amounted to around 24 million. The number grew steadily in the previous years, rising from roughly 14 million in 2017. As the most popular social media platform, Facebook accounted for about 22 million users in 2022, with the number being forecast to increase to 27 million by 2025. In comparison, approximately 10 million people actively used Instagram in 2022, and it is projected to reach 15 million in 2025. Sending messages is the primary online activity Among the different types of social media, Moroccans regularly used instant messenger platforms, such as WhatsApp, and social networks like Facebook as of 2021. In contrast, consumer review networks and discussion forums were the least used platforms. In the same year, the most popular activities among Moroccan social media users were sending private messages, commenting on posts, liking other users’ posts, and following people. As of 2020, users in Morocco spent an average of two hours and 30 minutes per day on social media. The average time was lower than in other African countries such as Nigeria (three hours and 45 minutes) and Egypt (two hours and 50 minutes).

Chinese citizens displayed a strong online presence, having approximately 1.08 billion active social media users as of February 2025. Other Asia-Pacific countries and regions appeared to trail behind China in terms of their social media engagement. India and Indonesia, the second- and third-ranked countries in terms of number of active social media users, had 491 million and 143 million active social media users, respectively. Leading social media platforms Facebook reigns worldwide and in the Asia-Pacific region as the most-used social media site, having displayed an increasing number of daily active users. However, Asian social networks, such as WeChat and Douyin, have also gained immense popularity in the Asia-Pacific region by offering content and services tailored to APAC preferences. Acting not only as a messaging and social media service, WeChat is a platform for online shopping and payment services. The social networking site, owned by Tencent, was the sixth most used social media platform globally. A connected region The Asia-Pacific region has gone through a technological evolution and alongside the region, its citizens have willingly adopted this change. This is conveyed through the internet penetration rate, which has more than doubled since 2010 in Asia. A better internet infrastructure has catalyzed the emergence of social media throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Instagram ranked as the most-used influencer marketing platform used among marketers in the United States in 2021. Nearly 68 percent of marketers adopted Instagram for influencer campaigns. Facebook followed, being used by 52 percent of marketers as an influencer marketing platform, while TikTok came in third with 42 percent. TikTok surpassed YouTube as an influencer marketing platform in 2021 and was expected to rise further over the years - going from 36 percent of marketers using it in 2020 to 54.9 percent in 2025.

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.

Facebook was the social network with the largest market share in Denmark as of January 2024, amounting to over 78 percent. Overall, Instagram and Pinterest accounted for 7.61 percent and 6.86 percent of the market share, respectively. X/Twitter amassed 3.57 percent of the social media market share in Denmark in January 2023.

How old are most social media users? The biggest share of respondents of the survey , who used social media, were of ages between 16 and 39. 96 percent of them were social media users in 2020. In 2020, there were fewest social media users in the age group of 75 and 89 as 63 percent of them used the platforms.

The Nordics and social media The number of social media users was the highest in Sweden, among the other Nordic countries. Over 8.3 million Swedish respondents were using social media in 2021. Denmark had over 4.8 million social media users, while Norway and Finland had 4.53 and 4.46 million users, respectively.

In January 2025, Facebook engulfed over 67.6 percent of all social media site visits in Portugal, followed by Instagram, with a 14.6 percent share of visits. Pinterest followed, with a share of almost seven percent, and X, previously known as Twitter, presented a market share of six percent.

In 2023, it is estimated that Snapchat will surpass TikTok as the fastest-growing social media platform globally, with a year-on-year user growth of 13.4%. Additionally, in 2024, TikTok has been forecast to see a 9.3 percent growth in users. In 2025, Facebook's user growth is estimated to be around 0.6 percent.

More than three-quarters of the Russian online population aged 16 years and older used the Telegram messenger, thus making it the most-used social media platform among those listed in the ranking. WhatsApp ranked second, with a penetration rate of nearly 74 percent, followed by VK and TikTok. Social media usage in Russia In 2024, the daily time spent on social media in Russia was recorded at roughly two hours and 20 minutes per user on average. After Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) were blocked in Russia at the end of February and the beginning of March 2022, a significant increase in activity was recorded on VK and Telegram. For example, the daily audience on VK increased by almost nine percent, while the number of friends requests and feed views grew by 250 percent and 25 percent, respectively. YouTube From the global perspective, YouTube ranked second after Facebook, which remained the leading social media platform with about three billion active users. The U.S.-based channel MrBeast had the highest number of subscribers on YouTube with around 343 million as of January 2025. India-based T-Series followed with 284 million subscribers as of that month.

According to a survey on digital usage in China, around 91.8 percent of respondents had used WeChat as of the third quarter of 2023. The short video app Douyin, the social commerce site Xiaohongshu, and the Twitter-like site Weibo, were among the most popular social media platforms in China. How successful is WeChat in China? The country’s most popular messaging app, WeChat, boasts over one billion monthly active users. For many Chinese consumers, WeChat is part of daily life, helping them to organize tasks such as paying bills, ordering food delivery, and calling a taxi. On average, WeChat users spent about an hour and 20 minutes per day on the app. Large user base with high engagement The social media scene in China is huge and mobile-centric. In 2023, the social media penetration rate amounted to 74 percent in China, slightly higher than in countries like the United States and Japan. While the user number has shown signs of reaching a saturation point, Chinese consumers have been spending more time online, with a considerable daily usage of social media.