As of February 2021, YouTube had a global penetration rate of 62 percent, followed closely by Meta's Facebook, with 61 percent. Overall, instant messaging service WhatsApp had a global penetration rate of 52 percent. Additionally, 12 percent of people used TikTok, and one in ten people around the world use messaging service Telegram.

As of 2021, Facebook, recently rebranded as Meta, was the social media platform used most often by ** percent of social networking users in the United States. In 2015, Facebook was the most used platform by ** percent of social media users, demonstrating a decrease of almost ** percent. During the same time frame, Instagram has continued to grow in popularity, with ** percent of users saying it was their most often used platform in 2021, an increase of ** percent since 2015. Snapchat was the most used platform by ** percent of respondents in 2018 and has since continued to decline. In 2020, TikTok was the most accessed platform for ***** percent of users and by 2021 it had more than doubled to ***** percent.

Which county has the most Facebook users?

              There are more than 378 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 193.8 million, 119.05 million, and 112.55 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.

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.

Instagram’s most popular post

              As of April 2024, the most popular post on Instagram was Lionel Messi and his teammates after winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup with Argentina, posted by the account @leomessi. Messi's post, which racked up over 61 million likes within a day, knocked off the reigning post, which was 'Photo of an Egg'. Originally posted in January 2021, 'Photo of an Egg' surpassed the world’s most popular Instagram post at that time, which was a photo by Kylie Jenner’s daughter totaling 18 million likes.
              After several cryptic posts published by the account, World Record Egg revealed itself to be a part of a mental health campaign aimed at the pressures of social media use.

              Instagram’s most popular accounts

              As of April 2024, the official Instagram account @instagram had the most followers of any account on the platform, with 672 million followers. Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) was the most followed individual with 628 million followers, while Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) was the most followed woman on the platform with 429 million. Additionally, Inter Miami CF striker Lionel Messi (@leomessi) had a total of 502 million. Celebrities such as The Rock, Kylie Jenner, and Ariana Grande all had over 380 million followers each.

              Instagram influencers

              In the United States, the leading content category of Instagram influencers was lifestyle, with 15.25 percent of influencers creating lifestyle content in 2021. Music ranked in second place with 10.96 percent, followed by family with 8.24 percent. Having a large audience can be very lucrative: Instagram influencers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom with over 90,000 followers made around 1,221 US dollars per post.

              Instagram around the globe

              Instagram’s worldwide popularity continues to grow, and India is the leading country in terms of number of users, with over 362.9 million users as of January 2024. The United States had 169.65 million Instagram users and Brazil had 134.6 million users. The social media platform was also very popular in Indonesia and Turkey, with 100.9 and 57.1, respectively. As of January 2024, Instagram was the fourth most popular social network in the world, behind Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp.

According to a survey conducted in July 2021, Facebook was the the most popular social media platform in Ukraine, used by over ** percent of the survey participants. Measuring at ** percent, YouTube was the second-leading social network in the country. The share of users of Vkontakte (VK), Odnoklassniki (Ok.ru), LinkedIn, and TikTok did not exceed **** percent.

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.

How many people use social media? Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2024, over **** ******* people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to over *** billion in 2029. Who uses social media? Social networking is one of the most popular digital activities worldwide and it is no surprise that social networking penetration across all regions is constantly increasing. As of January 2023, the global social media usage rate stood at ** percent. This figure is anticipated to grow as lesser developed digital markets catch up with other regions when it comes to infrastructure development and the availability of cheap mobile devices. In fact, most of social media’s global growth is driven by the increasing usage of mobile devices. Mobile-first market Eastern Asia topped the global ranking of mobile social networking penetration, followed by established digital powerhouses such as the Americas and Northern Europe. How much time do people spend on social media? Social media is an integral part of daily internet usage. On average, internet users spend *** minutes per day on social media and messaging apps, an increase of ** minutes since 2015. On average, internet users in Latin America had the highest average time spent per day on social media. What are the most popular social media platforms? Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass *** billion registered accounts and currently boasts approximately *** billion monthly active users, making it the most popular social network worldwide. In June 2023, the top social media apps in the Apple App Store included mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Telegram Messenger, as well as the ever-popular app version of Facebook.

This statistic shows a ranking of the most used social networks by companies in France in 2018 and 2021. In 2018, ** percent of companies used Facebook compared to ** percent in 2021. In 2021, most companies (** percent) used Instagram.

The largest share of surveyed marketers in Lithuania reported having collaborated with influencers on Instagram in 2021, at ** percent. Facebook was the second most popular social media platform for influencer marketing in the country, followed by YouTube.

VK was the most popular social media app among Russian Generation Z representatives, occupying over ** percent of the total app traffic spent on social networks in the first half of 2021. The second-leading platform was Instagram, accounting for approximately ********* of social media app traffic of Gen Z users.

Social media usage in New Zealand is dominated by Facebook, with around ** percent of the population claiming to use the platform each month. WhatsApp users were around half of this figure, with ** percent saying they used the messaging service.

Active users

There has been a steady year-on-year increase in active internet use in New Zealand; in 2022, almost ** percent of the population were active on social media. Mobile social media use has also seen a year-on-year increase, with around ** percent of the population as active users in 2021.

YouTube content and advertising

Kids’ content made up ***** of YouTube’s most popular media-ran channels in 2020, with Cartoon Network Australia having the largest number of views at almost *** thousand, and ABC News with just over *** thousand views.

Additionally, YouTube is proving lucrative for advertisers with ***** separate FMCG areas attracting large numbers of advertisement views. In 2019, Nescafe advertising had just over *** million views on the platform, Coca-Cola had approximately *** million and Canon Australia around 37 thousand.

According to a 2021 survey carried out among consumers in the United States, Facebook and Instagram were the social networks most used to learn about, discover, and buy fashion apparel products in the U.S.. Across the two platforms, slightly over half (** percent) of users said the content they saw on their feeds resulted in a purchase.

******** was the social network with the largest market share in Denmark as of March 2025, amounting to over ** percent. Overall, Pinterest and Instagram accounted for **** percent and **** percent of the market share, respectively. X/Twitter amassed **** percent of the social media market share in Denmark in March 2024. How old are most social media users? According to a survey of social media users, the majority of respondents were of ages between ** and **. Around ** percent of respondents in this age group used social networks in 2020. Furthermore, those aged between 60 and 74 used online platforms the least, as only ** percent of respondents in this age group reported engaging with social networks. The Nordics and social media The number of social media users was the highest in Sweden, among the other Nordic countries. Over *** million Swedish respondents were using social media in 2021. Denmark had over *** million social media users, while Norway and Finland had **** and **** million users, respectively.

Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram were reported to be the most actively used social media platforms in Ukraine among those aged 18 to 39 years in January and February 2021. One third of respondents between 40 and 49 years old had an Instagram account. Furthermore, about ** percent of participants in the age category of 60 years and older did not use social networks at all.

As of November 2021, Facebook had around *** million users in the United States, maintaining its status as the most used social network, followed by Instagram with over *** thousand users. TikTok, particularly popular with younger audiences ranked third, followed by image-based Pinterest. Social news aggregation and web content discussion website Reddit had an audience size of over ** million in the U.S.

A telephone survey conducted in the United States in 2021 found that 81 percent of internet users used YouTube and 69 percent said that they used Facebook, now rebranded as Meta, followed by 40 percent stating that they used Instagram. Additionally, 21 percent of respondents reported to use TikTok whilst 18 percent used Reddit.

In 2021, Facebook was the most popular social networking application for shopping in Colombia, used by nearly three-quarters (** percent) of respondents. The messaging app WhatsApp and photo app Instagram followed, with over half of those surveyed using them for purchases.

How many people are on social media? Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities and in 2021, ** percent of the population in the United States had a social networking profile, representing a *** percent increase from the ** percent usage reach in the previous year. This equals approximately 223 million U.S. social media users as of 2020. Global social media accessAccording to estimates, the number of worldwide social media users reached *** billion in January 2021. The overall most popular social network based on active users is the American market leader Facebook. In January 2021, Facebook had some **** billion accounts, followed by YouTube and WhatsApp with roughly *** billion and *** billion users respectively. The regions with the highest penetration of social media users are Western and Northern Europe. Social media audiences in the United StatesAlthough knowing how many people use social media is a powerful indicator of the tremendous influence such websites and apps have in our day to day life, how people are using them and who these users are is also telling. A report on social media usage released in 2019 shows that among Americans, younger online audiences were more likely to use social networks than older generations. Social media users in the United States use different social networks for a wide range of purposes. In a February 2019 survey, Instagram was the top social network for viewing photos whereas Facebook was more popular for sharing content.

As of the third quarter of 2024, WhatsApp was the most active social network among internet users in the United Kingdom (UK), with 79.9 percent of internet users reporting use of the service. Facebook was very close behind, with a rate of 72.3 percent, followed by Facebook Messenger with 56.6 percent. YouTube’s broad audience in the United Kingdom YouTube reaches a broad audience in the UK, making it an attractive partner for advertisers of almost any product. More than 75 percent of individuals of every income bracket watch YouTube, with the likelihood of watching increasing with the pay-grade. Whether advertising basic items or luxury products, marketers should be able to connect with UK audiences through YouTube. There are almost no people in the UK to not use YouTube at least monthly. According to a survey conducted in the third quarter of 2020, 46 percent of respondents went on YouTube on a daily basis. Facebook in the United Kingdom  Facebook enjoys a healthy market position in the UK, holding an estimated  55 percent share of the market. The service attracted  50.6 million UK users during May 2021, and Facebook UK Limited  generated 1.1 billion British pounds in revenue  during 2019. The UK division of the company  posted an operating profit of 121.9 million British pounds that year.