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 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.

Global Social Media Market to hit USD 466.56B by 2029 growing at 13% CAGR. Explore trends, drivers, and competition for strategic insights with The Business Research Company.

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.

Global ad spend were expected to reach over $134 billion in 2022. This means that it has increased by over 17% yearly.

During a July 2022 survey among B2B marketers who used social media platforms for paid content promotion worldwide, 78 percent of respondents stated that they made use of LinkedIn over the previous 12 months. Facebook was ranked second with 56 percent of respondents, which was a drop of 13 percentage points, compared to 2021, when 69 percent stated using it.

[415 Pages Report] The global enterprise social networks market size totaled US$ 6.4 Billion in 2021. Sales in the enterprise social networks market are expected to increase at a 13.9% CAGR, with the market valuation reaching US$ 26.5 Billion by 2032.

Attributes	Details
Enterprise Social Networks Market Estimated Size (2022)	US$ 7.2 Billion
Projected Market Valuation (2032)	US$ 26.5 Billion
Value-based CAGR% (2022 to 2032)	13.9%
Top 5 Vendor Market Share	Around 45%

Scope of Report

Attributes	Details
Estimated Market Size (2022)	US$ 7.2 Billion
Projected Market Valuation (2032)	US$ 26.5 Billion
Value-based CAGR (2022 to 2032)	13.9%
Forecast Period	2022 to 2032
Historical Data Available for	2017 to 2021
Market Analysis	US$ Billion for Value
Key Regions Covered	North America, Latin America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia & Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa
Key Countries Covered	The USA, Canada, Germany, The UK, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia & New Zealand, GCC Countries, Turkey, North Africa and South Africa
Key Segments Covered	Type, Enterprise Size, Industry and Region
Key Companies Profiled	IBM Corporation Salesforce TIBCO Software Yammer (Microsoft) Higher Logic Alma Suite Zyncro eXO Talkspirit BlueKiwi Zoho Corporation JIVE Software Boonex Cisco
Report Coverage	Market Forecast, Company Share Analysis, Competition Intelligence, DROT Analysis, Market Dynamics and Challenges, and Strategic Growth Initiatives

According to a survey, Facebook was the most popular social media platform for live streaming shopping, used for this activity by nearly 58 percent of global internet users. Instagram ranked second, with 46 percent of respondents, followed by TikTok, with almost 16 percent.

As of January 2025, TikTok creator and comedian Khabane Lame was the most followed content creator on the platform. Lame, who is based in Italy, reached 162.4 million subscribers. Influencer Charlie D'Amelio followed closely in second position with 155.8 million followers. Jimmy Donaldson - operating on YouTube as MrBeast, ranked third, with a total of 107.8 million followers.

TikTok global users Popular video-sharing platform TikTok has gained immense popularity globally. As of April 2024, TikTok had over one billion monthly active users, making it one of the most widely used social media platforms worldwide. Around 45 percent of the total user base on TikTok were women, while approximately 54 percent of the popular social video platform users were men. In addition, TikTok has become a go-to platform for young people. As of July 2024, most of TikTok's global user base consisted of younger age groups, with 18.9 percent of TikTok's users being men aged between 18 and 24 years. TikTok usage and audience Since its launch in 2016, TikTok’s audience has increased significantly. As of July 2024, Indonesia and the United States were the countries with the largest TikTok audiences. Indonesia led with 157.6 million users, followed by the United States with 120.5 million users. The app has managed to catch users’ attention and keep its base entertained. So much so that, as of the second quarter of 2022, global users were spending around 95 minutes daily on TikTok, making it the most engaging among social media apps. Additionally, TikTok has quickly become one of the most popular platforms across different app stores. In September 2022, the video app had almost 24 million downloads on Google Play Store, making it the most downloaded app for Android users worldwide. In contrast, TikTok was the fifth most downloaded app on Apple App Store, with approximately 4.12 million global users downloads in June 2023.

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 September 2022, TikTok was the leading mobile social media app in the Google Play Store in Spain, with over 318.5 thousand downloads that month. French-based network BeReal and TikTok Now followed with 293 thousand and 280.5 thousand downloads each from Android users in the country in the examined month. Additionally, BeReal has found particular success in Spain, as the country gathers one of the highest number of active daily users in Europe, ranking on the fourth position of the photo-based app's lifetime downloads worldwide.

TikTok vs. all At least among Android users, the visual-based social media networks dominated this ranking. TikTok is based on videos, while Instagram and Snapchat offer uses a mix of still and moving recordings, while its new contender BeReal focuses on more spontaneous and timed user portraits. The Spanish market is becoming increasingly important for social media platforms as the share of individuals using social networks increases. The overall number of TikTok users in Spain was 12.67 million in 2022 and forecast to reach nearly 14.86 million users by 2025.

Who are the real social media leaders in Spain? Strong growth struggles to measure up long-term against pre-existing market penetration. Incumbent firms such as Facebook and Instagram need few downloads to maintain their lead over TikTok. As such, Facebook can continue to thrive by winning downloads at the rate that existing users change phones, while the emerging platforms must establish themselves with a higher number of monthly installations.

According to recent industry measurements, users in Brazil generated more than 5.6 million downloads of the video-sharing platform TikTok during June 2023. Indonesia ranked second, with almost five million downloads generated during the examined period. TikTok, which is the international version of the Chinese app Douyin, experienced spectacular growth in popularity in recent years.

TikTok: global popularity TikTok, which reached the milestone of one billion active users at the end of September 2021, still ranks among the most popular social media platforms worldwide as of January 2023. In 2022, TikTok users worldwide spent an impressive average of approximately 23.3 hours per month on the platform, highlighting the app's popularity and high engagement. In 2023, TikTok's global popularity in social media is still on the rise, with a worldwide penetration rate of 19.4 percent.

TikTok: revenue growth The social video app, which generates revenues via advertising and in-app purchases from users, saw in-app revenues of almost 500 million U.S. dollars worldwide in the first quarter of 2023. The global net advertising revenue generated by TikTok is expected to reach 18.5 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2024. Additionally, the net advertising revenue of TikTok in the United States is expected to further increase, reaching an estimated 11 billion U.S. dollars in 2024.

In 2022, Instagram was the world's leading social media app, with 547 million downloads WhatsApp ranked second with 424 million downloads, while Telegram surpassed the remaining mobile versions of Meta-owned social media platforms Facebook and Messenger. Newcomer BeReal, a photo-sharing social media app launched in 2020, entered the ranking in tenth position with over 90 million global downloads during the examined year.

As of October 2022, TikTok was estimated to have 1.5 billion monthly active users (MAU) worldwide. The popular short-video social platform was projected to reach two billion MAU by the end of 2026. In comparison, social and photo platform Instagram was projected to reach 1.5 billion MAU by the end of 2026.

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.

The size of the Global Healthcare Customer Data Platform market was valued at USD XXX Million in 2023 and is projected to reach USD XXX Million by 2032, with an expected CAGR of 27.11% during the forecast period.The Global Healthcare Customer Data Platform Market is a fast-emerging business that enables healthcare organizations to unlock power in their data. A Healthcare Customer Data Platform, or HCDP, is a single piece of software, designed to unite patient data from all the sources, including EHRs, clinical trials, wearables, and social media, in one, central repository to allow healthcare providers to access a holistic and action-oriented view of each patient's health journey. HCDPs revolutionize healthcare by driving personalized patient experiences. Critical analysis of large amounts of data identifies important patterns and trends, which will enable healthcare providers to tailor treatments, medications, and communication for individuals. For instance, HCDPs enable proactive care management with regard to the possible health risks of different patients and immediate interventions whenever health risks get closer. The capabilities of HCDPs optimize operational efficiency further. HCDPs automate what has been a time-consuming data collection and analysis for the various purposes. These systems simplify workflow procedures, therefore minimizing administrative burdens. Healthcare professionals can maximally be engaged in the provision of quality healthcare services rather than fumbling about paperwork. Conclusion This Global Healthcare Customer Data Platform Market is expected to grow exponentially due to the increasing importance of data-driven insights. Patient outcomes improvement, operational efficiency, and complete overhaul of service delivery will be the core approach that dominates the way healthcare providers embrace HCDPs. Recent developments include: In March 2022, GE Healthcare planned to introduce the Edison Digital Health Platform, a vendor-agnostic hosting and data aggregation platform with an integrated artificial intelligence (AI) engine. The platform was developed to enable hospitals and healthcare systems to effectively deploy clinical, workflow, analytics, and AI tools within the healthcare environment., In March 2022, Salesforce introduced innovations across Customer 360 for Health, including Patient Data Platform and Patient Commerce Portal updates. These new features, powered by Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud, enable healthcare and life sciences companies to create personalized digital experiences while safeguarding patient data.. Key drivers for this market are: Technological Advancements, Growing Burden of Diseases. Potential restraints include: High Price and Maintenance, Lack of Proper IT infrastructure. Notable trends are: The Cloud-Based Segment is Expected to Account for the Significant Market Share During the Forecast Period.

A global survey conducted in the fourth quarter of 2023 found that the main reason for using social media was to keep in touch with friends and family, with over 49 percent of social media users saying this was their main reason for using online networks. Overall, 38 percent of social media users said that filling spare time was their main reason for using social media platforms, whilst 34.3 percent of respondents said they used it to read news stories. 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 January 2024, the social network had over three billion global users. YouTube, WhatsApp, and Instagram 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.

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 February 2025, there were 5.56 billion internet users worldwide, which amounted to 67.9 percent of the global population. Of this total, 5.24 billion, or 63.9 percent of the world's population, were social media users. Global internet usage Connecting billions of people worldwide, the internet is a core pillar of the modern information society. Northern Europe ranked first among worldwide regions by the share of the population using the internet in 2024. In The Netherlands, Norway and Saudi Arabia, 99 percent of the population used the internet as of April 2024. North Korea was at the opposite end of the spectrum, with virtually no internet usage penetration among the general population, ranking last worldwide. Asia was home to the largest number of online users worldwide – over 2.93 billion at the latest count. Europe ranked second, with around 750 million internet users. China, India, and the United States rank ahead of other countries worldwide by the number of internet users. Worldwide internet user demographics As of 2023, the share of female internet users worldwide was 65 percent, five percent less than that of men. Gender disparity in internet usage was bigger in the Arab States and Africa, with around a ten percent difference. Worldwide regions, like the Commonwealth of Independent States and Europe, showed a smaller gender gap. As of 2023, global internet usage was higher among individuals between 15 and 24 years across all regions, with young people in Europe representing the most significant usage penetration, 98 percent. In comparison, the worldwide average for the age group 15–24 years was 79 percent. The income level of the countries was also an essential factor for internet access, as 93 percent of the population of the countries with high income reportedly used the internet, as opposed to only 27 percent of the low-income markets.

According to an annual study focusing on the use of social media platforms for art-related purposes, Facebook has gradually lost ground to Instagram since 2016. While roughly 74 percent of surveyed art buyers worldwide reported using Instagram for art-related purposes in 2022, only 18 percent said to rely on Facebook for the same reason.