In 2023, the estimated revenues generated by WhatsApp Business amounted to over 382 million U.S. dollars. Asia was the region estimated to have generated the highest WhatsApp Business revenues, with over 155 million U.S. dollars spent on the professional version of the popular instant messaging communication app. Europe ranked second, with users in the region estimated to have spent around 90 million U.S. dollars on WhatsApp Business. Launched in 2018, WhatsApp Business allows users to connect instantly with company representatives or automated chatbots from their regular WhatsApp interface. Additionally, companies can choose to initiate contact with users for marketing and promotional purposes.

ByteDance’s triumphant TikTok/ Douyin is one of the most successful Chinese brands that have made its name beyond borders. The short video brand enjoyed immense popularity around the world, surpassing Instagram and WhatsApp to be the most downloaded mobile app. In 2025, the brand value of TikTok/Douyin amounted to 106 billion U.S. dollars. It was the most valuable unicorn worldwide as of 2024 with a market cap of 200 billion U.S. dollars. TikTok versus Douyin: the major differences After Douyin’s success in China, ByteDance launched TikTok — a separate, international version of Douyin- in 2017. The video-sharing platforms, though quite similar in interface and functions, are two independent entities. Douyin and TikTok differ in accessibility (mainland China versus rest of the world), content results (China-based content versus international content), positioning (skills and lifestyle-tips-based versus more art-based), and functions (Douyin has more advanced live streaming and in-app purchase features). Who is using TikTok and Douyin? The duo possessed a large user base. In 2025, TikTok was estimated to have over 950 million users while that of Douyin would exceed 830 million in China. American and Southeast Asian countries were TikTok’s major markets. On average, the international version had a relatively older user composition than its Chinese sister app – a third of users aged below 34 years registered on TikTok versus half of Douyin users were under 31 years. In some countries like the United States, TikTok has achieved a high penetration rate among young adults.

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.