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.

Despite a tumultuous 2018, Facebook is still the top social network in the United States, with 169.76 million mobile users accessing the Facebook app in September 2019. The company’s other properties Instagram and Facebook Messenger ranked second and third with 121 and 106 million users respectively. Cambridge Analytica scandal 2018 The biggest social media company in the world had a difficult 2018. The platform has long been accused of enabling the spread of fake news during the 2016 election and beyond. One of the first and biggest negative Facebook stories of 2018 was the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which unfolded from March 2018. The Guardian, The Observer, and The New York Times simultaneously reported on political data firm Cambridge Analytica harvesting data of millions of Facebook users worldwide without their knowledge before the 2016 election, which led to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg having to testify before Congress in April 2018. Facebook usage behavior changes Due to the revelations about Facebook and the company’s treatment of private user data, many U.S. users are planning to use the social network much less and to be much more careful about what they post . During an April 2018 survey, only 20 percent of respondents stated that their Facebook usage has not changed, and they were planning on continuing to use the social platform as much as they always had in the past.

This statistic presents the social network membership reach among the online population in the United States. During the February 2017 survey, 27 percent of U.S. internet users accessed the social image sharing platform Pinterest. Facebook was ranked first with a 78 percent usage rate.

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.

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.

Facebook was the most visited social media platform in Denmark in recent years, used by ** percent of the survey respondents in 2020. YouTube ranked second, followed by Instagram and LinkedIn. When asked how often they used Facebook, every second Dane stated to be using the platform several times a day. None of the respondents used Facebook less often than once a month.

Facebook worldwide

After launching in 2004, Facebook has gained massive popularity on a global scale and the number of Facebook users has increased dramatically over the past decade. One hundred million individuals were Facebook users in the third quarter of 2008. The corresponding figure for the second quarter of 2020 was over *** billion users.

Users' profiles

Despite it being popular among all age groups, some seemed to be more keen on using Facebook. Like most social media platforms, Facebook was most popular among the younger Danes – 16 to 24 years old – according to a survey conducted in 2018. Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube followed the same trend.

According to a May 2024 survey, WhatsApp was the most popular social media platform in Mexico. At that time, ** percent of those interviewed said they had an active account on the messaging app. Also owned by Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook and Instagram ranked second and third, being used by ** and ** percent of respondents, respectively.

Social media penetration and demographics Close to ** percent of the Mexican population was expected to be on Facebook by the end of 2023 (slightly below the estimated ***** percent for the United States during the same period). Its popularity in the North American country relies heavily on young internet users: when it comes to the distribution of Mexican Facebook users by age group, more than ** percent were between 18 and 34 years old. All news just a click away According to a February 2022 survey, half of internet users in Mexico used Facebook for news consumption, while YouTube is used by ** percent of the country's online audiences for the same function. This preference was also observed across all age groups: more than a third of the country's news consumers across all demographics turned to the Meta-owned social network to find, read, watch, share, or comment on the news.

When it comes to the most well-known social networks in the United States, YouTube and Facebook are leading the pack with a brand awareness of 96 and 95 percent respectively, among internet users. For this study, brand awareness was surveyed employing the concept of aided brand recognition, showing respondents both the brand's logo and the written brand name.

As of September 2023, YouTube as the most popular social media platform for global users, with 97 percent of respondents reporting to use the popular video platform. YouTube was also the most popular social media among Gen Z users, with 96 percent of respondents in this age group reporting to have used the video platform as of the examined period. Facebook's usage kept steady among among the general digital population, with around eight in 10 reporting to have used the platform. In comparison, the social media's popularity was in free fall among gen Z users with only four in 10 among those surveyed reporting to engage with the Meta-powered platform.

Facebook was the social network with the largest market share in Sweden as of March 2025. The market share of Facebook made up more than 86 percent of the total market in Sweden. Instagram reached 6.81 percent, ranking second. Overall, Pinterest had roughly 2.44 percent of all Swedish social network views. Social media usage in SwedenOverall, the share of Swedes participating in social networks grew between 2011 and 2023. 54 percent of interviewed individuals used social media in 2011, whereas in 2023 this increased to 73.24 percent.  The Nordics and social media Compared to the other Nordic countries, Sweden ranked third in share of active social media users in 2024. Around 80.1 percent of the country's population were active users, while Finland's active social media users accounted for 80.4 percent. Norway had the highest share with 81.7 percent. The Faroe Islands ranked sixth with 66.7 percent. The number of active social media users amounted to 8.53 million in Sweden in 2024.

This statistic gives information on the most popular social networking apps in the United States as of September 2019, ranked by monthly user engagement. During that month, mobile Facebook users spent an average of 769.16 minutes on the social networking platform.

As of January 2025, ** percent of social media users in the United States aged 40 to 49 years were users of Facebook, as were ** percent of ** to ** year olds in the country. Overall, ** percent of those aged 18 to 29 years were using Instagram in the U.S. 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 *** million users in 2029. As of 2023, the social network user penetration in the United States amounted to an impressive ***** 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 ** percent of all social media visits in 2023, followed by Pinterest with **** percent of visits. The global social media landscape As of April 2024, **** billion people were social media users, accounting for **** percent of the world’s population. Northern Europe was the region with the highest social media penetration rate with a reach of **** percent, followed by Western Europe with **** percent and Eastern Asia **** 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. YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp followed, all with *** billion or more MAU.

In March 2025 in Norway, Facebook was the most visited social media platform, accounting for ***** percent of the market share. Pinterest ranked second, making up more than ***** percent of social network visits. Meta's Instagram followed, with *** percent of social media visits in Norway.  Social media users over the years  Overall, the share of individuals who participated in social networks increased significantly over the years. Starting at under ** percent of individuals in 2011, the share of social media users peaked in 2023, when ***** percent of the interviewed Norwegians reported to be using social networks. In 2022, the percentage was ***** percent.  Compared to the other Nordic countries, Norway ranked third by number of social media users in 2024, with **** million users that year. Sweden was the Nordic country with most social media users – **** million. Denmark was second and Finland was fourth in the ranking.

Vkontakte enjoyed the highest place in the ranking of social networks in Russia, at 378 million monthly publications as of October 2024. Odnoklassniki followed with roughly over 150 million publications per month. VKontakte: the Facebook of Russia VKontakte, also referred to as VK, primarily services the Russian market with a social network that borrows very heavily from Facebook in terms of design and function. VK has undergone significant growth over the past five years, with its user base rising from 43.9 million users in March 2016 to 84.7 million users in December 2023. In that year, the number of downloads of the social media platform in question exceeded 14.6 million in Russia alone. VK’s presence is much smaller outside of Russia, however, with more than 2.4 million downloads in Kazakhstan over the same period.   Social media usage in Russia Although Russians tend to display a preference for nationally developed services such as VK and Odnoklassniki, Western social networks also have a significant users' base. Namely, nearly 4.7 million Russians are using Twitter, while the number of Instagram users in the country stood at nearly 64 million users in January 2024. Approximately 71 million Russians were also using Facebook as of January 2024.

WhatsApp was the leading actively used messenger service in Germany in 2021. Almost 84 percent of users confirmed this. While WhatsApp is foremost a messaging service, certain features indicate similarities with social media networks, as sharing and posting between users still occurs, just not necessarily on a publicly accessible website. Delivering the message For most of the population, modern life is unimaginable without messenger apps. Texting has become much more varied as a form of communication thanks to extended file and content sharing options within messages. There is no doubt that WhatsApp is a popular messaging app in Germany. In 2023, almost 85 percent of people were messaging on WhatsApp every day. By 2025, it is estimated that over 53 million people will be using WhatsApp in Germany, suggesting it's popularity as a messaging app will not diminish with time. Personal data While Facebook is extremely popular in many different countries, long-term questions and concerns from users continue to arise, with personal data security being one of the leading topics of discussion. In general, the there have been many breaches of personal data online. At the same time, social media continues to enjoy rising popularity and use among the German population, both in a private and professional context.

Market leader ******** accounted for ** percent of all social media site visits in Canada in March 2025. Overall, ********* ranked second with ***** percent of all Canadian social media site visits across desktop and mobile devices. X (formerly Twitter) ranked third, accounting for **** percent.

With over 22 million active authors per month, VKontakte (VK) was the leading social media platform in Russia as of October 2024. The second-most popular network by monthly authors was Instagram with 6.5 million active monthly users.

******** 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.

As of March 2024, Meta's Facebook was the most popular social media platform in Denmark, with 81 percent of social network users in the country using the service. Instagram and YouTube ranked second, with almost six in ten users in Denmark accessing these online platforms. Snapchat was also relatively popular, with 39 percent of respondents stating that they used the app.