Most Popular Social Networks Worldwide: Statistics and Facts 2026

The social network landscape in 2026 in numbers

Social networks are now the single largest category of online activity. According to Kepios research published by DataReportal, there were 5.79 billion social media user identities in April 2026, equal to more than two in three people on Earth, 94.5 percent of adults aged 18 and over and 94.7 percent of all internet users. The typical user is active on 6.5 different platforms each month and spends 18 hours and 36 minutes a week on social media, about 2 hours and 39 minutes a day.

The market is highly concentrated at the top. Meta owns three of the four apps with more than 3 billion monthly users and reported 3.60 billion daily active people across its family of apps in June 2026. Alphabet runs YouTube, the largest video platform, and Tencent runs WeChat, which dominates China. A second tier of independent platforms, including Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit and Telegram, each reach between roughly 500 million and 1 billion people. The full list of platforms and user counts is also tracked in our biggest social media platforms by users ranking.

Global social media users: 5.79 billion and still rising

The number of social media user identities has grown every year. DataReportal reported 4.20 billion in January 2021, 4.62 billion in January 2022, 4.76 billion in January 2023, 5.04 billion in January 2024 and 5.24 billion in January 2025. The figure reached 5.66 billion in October 2025 and 5.79 billion in April 2026. The latest year added 294 million users, or 5.4 percent, which Kepios equates to 9.3 new users every second.

Up 1.59 billion in five years: social media user identities rose from 4.20 billion in January 2021 to 5.79 billion in April 2026.

A user identity is not the same as a unique person, because some people run more than one account and some accounts are shared or duplicated. Kepios notes this limitation, and its figures should be read as an upper bound. Even so, with 6.04 billion internet users worldwide in October 2025 and 94.7 percent of them using social media, the remaining room for growth is mainly in regions where internet access itself is still expanding, such as South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Country and regional breakdowns are in our worldwide social network users and social network penetration by region reports.

The most popular social networks by monthly active users

Only some platforms publish audited or official user counts, and they measure them differently. Using the latest official figures from each company, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp each have more than 3 billion monthly active users. Meta last reported a precise Facebook figure of 3.07 billion in late 2023 and has since stopped publishing app-level totals, but Mark Zuckerberg announced that WhatsApp passed 3 billion in 2025 and that Instagram reached 3 billion in September 2025.

Three apps at the top: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp each report more than 3 billion monthly users, more than twice WeChat at 1.44 billion.

Beyond Meta, Tencent reported 1,439 million combined monthly active users for Weixin and WeChat at June 30, 2026, up 2 percent. Telegram founder Pavel Durov said in March 2025 that the app had significantly more than 1 billion monthly users. Snap reported 971 million monthly active users and 493 million daily users in the second quarter of 2026, and Pinterest 640 million monthly users. Threads, launched by Meta in 2023, passed 400 million monthly users in August 2025 and 150 million daily users later that year.

Advertising reach: YouTube, Facebook and TikTok lead

For platforms that do not publish user counts, the best comparable measure is the advertising audience each company reports in its own ad tools, compiled by DataReportal. On this basis, in April 2026 YouTube reached 2.65 billion users, Facebook 2.39 billion, TikTok 2.21 billion, Instagram 1.99 billion and LinkedIn 1.43 billion. Advertising reach counts only users that advertisers can target, usually aged 13 or over and excluding restricted markets, so it runs below monthly active users.

TikTok in the top three: TikTok reached 2.21 billion users through its ad tools in April 2026, behind only YouTube at 2.65 billion and Facebook at 2.39 billion.

The ad reach figures are the only regular source for TikTok and YouTube, since neither ByteDance nor Alphabet publishes monthly active user totals. They also explain why advertisers still treat Facebook as essential despite its ageing audience in Western markets. Country figures for these platforms are in our countries with the most TikTok users and YouTube statistics reports.

Meta: 3.60 billion people a day and 201 billion dollars in revenue

Meta is the dominant company in social networking by every measure. Its family of apps, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads, averaged 3.60 billion daily active people in June 2026, up 3 percent year on year, after 3.58 billion in December 2025. Revenue reached 200.97 billion dollars in 2025, up 22 percent from 164.50 billion dollars in 2024, and 196.18 billion dollars of that came from advertising.

Revenue up 70 percent since 2021: Meta revenue rose from 117.93 billion dollars in 2021 to 200.97 billion dollars in 2025, after a flat 2022.

Growth accelerated again in 2026. Meta reported second quarter 2026 revenue of 60.80 billion dollars, up 28 percent, with advertising revenue of 59.36 billion dollars. Ad impressions rose 14 percent and the average price per ad 12 percent, showing that both more ads and higher prices drove the gain. More on the company is in our Facebook statistics and Instagram statistics reports, and in our ranking of the countries with the most Facebook users.

The challengers: Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit and WeChat

Independent platforms are smaller but several are growing faster than Meta. Snap reported 493 million daily active users in the second quarter of 2026, up 5 percent from 469 million, and 971 million monthly users, up 4 percent. Pinterest grew monthly users 11 percent to a record 640 million, its eleventh straight quarter of double-digit user growth. Reddit grew fastest: daily active uniques rose 18 percent to 130.3 million and weekly active uniques 24 percent to 514.6 million.

In China, Tencent reported 1,439 million combined Weixin and WeChat monthly users at June 30, 2026, up 2 percent, while QQ mobile users fell 2 percent to 520 million. WeChat growth is now limited by the size of the Chinese online population, so Tencent is focusing on revenue per user: its marketing services revenue rose 22 percent to 43.6 billion yuan in the second quarter of 2026. Revenues across the sector are compared in our revenue of selected social media companies data.

Advertising revenue: Meta takes 80 percent of the listed total

Comparing second quarter 2026 revenue for the social and video companies that publish figures in US dollars shows how unequal the market is. Meta earned 59.36 billion dollars from advertising, Alphabet reported YouTube ads revenue of 11.06 billion dollars, Snap total revenue of 1.60 billion dollars, Pinterest 1.18 billion dollars and Reddit 805 million dollars. Of the combined 73.99 billion dollars, Meta accounted for 80.2 percent and YouTube for 14.9 percent.

Meta dominates: Meta took 59.36 billion dollars, or 80.2 percent, of the 73.99 billion dollars earned by these five companies in the second quarter of 2026.

This comparison leaves out two large players. ByteDance, the private owner of TikTok and Douyin, does not publish audited results, and Tencent reports in yuan. Overall social media advertising spending estimates vary widely by forecaster, which is why this report uses company-reported revenue only. Market-level estimates are covered in our social media ad spend worldwide report.

Revenue growth: Reddit leads at 61 percent

Growth rates tell a different story from size. In the second quarter of 2026, Reddit revenue rose 61 percent from 500 million dollars to 805 million dollars, Meta revenue 28 percent, Snap 19 percent, Pinterest 18 percent and YouTube ads 13 percent. Reddit said it had now delivered eight consecutive quarters of revenue growth above 60 percent, helped by advertising and by licensing its content for AI training.

Small but fast: Reddit grew revenue 61 percent in the second quarter of 2026, more than twice the 28 percent growth of Meta.

User growth follows a similar order. Reddit daily active uniques grew 18 percent, Pinterest monthly users 11 percent, Snap daily users 5 percent, Meta daily active people 3 percent and WeChat monthly users 2 percent. The largest platforms are approaching saturation in their core markets, so their growth now comes mainly from higher prices per ad and more time spent, while smaller platforms still add users quickly. Year-on-year trends are also tracked in our social media year-on-year growth data.

US adults: YouTube 84 percent, Facebook 71 percent

In the United States, the Pew Research Center surveyed 5,022 adults between February and June 2025. YouTube was the most widely used platform, at 84 percent of adults, followed by Facebook at 71 percent and Instagram at 50 percent. TikTok was used by 37 percent, WhatsApp by 32 percent and Reddit by 26 percent. Newer text platforms such as Threads, Bluesky and Truth Social were each used by about one in ten adults or fewer.

Video first: 84 percent of US adults use YouTube, 13 points more than Facebook at 71 percent.

Age makes a large difference. Pew found that 80 percent of adults under 30 use Instagram, and younger adults are far more likely to use TikTok, Snapchat and Reddit, while Facebook use is spread more evenly across age groups. Why people use these apps, from keeping in touch to news and entertainment, is covered in our social media usage reasons worldwide report.

US teens: YouTube 89 percent, one in five on TikTok almost constantly

Teen use differs sharply from adults. In a Pew survey of 1,458 US teens aged 13 to 17 in September and October 2025, 89 percent used YouTube, 65 percent Instagram, 60 percent TikTok and 55 percent Snapchat, but only 31 percent Facebook. About one in five teens said they were on TikTok, at 21 percent, or YouTube, at 20 percent, almost constantly.

Facebook fades with teens: 31 percent of US teens use Facebook, against 89 percent for YouTube and 60 percent for TikTok.

The same survey found that 64 percent of US teens use AI chatbots, led by ChatGPT at 59 percent, Gemini at 23 percent and Meta AI at 20 percent, and about 30 percent use them daily. Chatbots are becoming a new competitor for the attention of young people, alongside social feeds. The broader rise of AI is covered in our artificial intelligence statistics.

Time spent: 18 hours and 36 minutes a week

Kepios reports that the average social media user spends 18 hours and 36 minutes a week on social platforms, and that the world spends more than 15 billion hours a day consuming social content. The average user is active on 6.5 platforms a month, down from 6.75 in the October 2025 report, which suggests people are consolidating onto fewer apps even as total time stays high. Young women aged 16 to 24 spend the most, at 25 hours and 45 minutes a week in the October 2025 data.

Daily usage patterns by country and platform are covered in our daily social media usage worldwide report, and the wider picture in our social media statistics and facts hub.

Outlook: slower user growth, faster monetisation

Three trends stand out from the latest data. First, user growth is slowing at the top: Meta added 3 percent more daily users in the year to June 2026 and WeChat 2 percent, while total social media identities still grew 5.4 percent thanks to new internet users. Second, money is growing much faster than users: Meta revenue rose 28 percent and Reddit 61 percent in the second quarter of 2026, driven by AI-based ad targeting and higher prices. Third, attention is spreading to new forms, from AI chatbots used by 64 percent of US teens to text apps such as Threads with 400 million monthly users.

For the ranking itself, little is likely to change soon. Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are each above 3 billion monthly users, YouTube and TikTok lead in advertising reach, and no challenger is close to that scale. The main risks are regulation, including age limits for teens in several countries, and competition for time from AI assistants. The full user ranking is updated in our social networks ranked by number of users data.

Social networks in numbers

Aladdin questions answered with data