30+ Social Media Usage And Industry Statistics (2024)
Looking for the latest statistics about social media users? You’re in the right place.
In this post, you’ll find all the latest facts and figures about the social media industry, including the leading platforms and the people who use them.
By the end of the post, you’ll have a deeper understanding of what the social media landscape looks like this year, and you’ll have gathered plenty of useful insights to inform your strategy for the year ahead.
Top picks
- There are 5.07 social media users around the world (DataReportal)
- 62.6% of the global population—and 93% of the global population with internet access—uses social media (DataReportal)
- The number of social media users has increased 5.4% year-over-year and has more than doubled over the last decade. (DataReportal)
- Facebook is the most-used social media platform with 3.06 billion users but… (DataReportal)
- Instagram and WhatsApp are the social media platforms that most users say they like best (GWI)
- 53.4% of social media users are male while 46.6% are female (DataReportal)
- The average daily time spent using social media is 2 hours 20 minutes (GWI, DataReportal)
Social media usage statistics
We’ll kick things off by looking at some general social media user figures that tell us how many people use social media globally.
How many social media users are there?
As of April this year, there are around 5.07 billion social media users in total—more than half the world’s population. Or at least that’s the best estimate that the data boffins have been able to come up with.
Keep in mind, though, that this doesn’t necessarily represent the number of unique individuals who use social media, but rather the number of social media identities/accounts there are. It may be that the numbers are somewhat inflated due to issues like duplicate and bot accounts.
Source: DataReportal
What percentage of the population uses social media?
At the time of writing, the global population stands at a little over 8.1 billion. So, some quick math tells us that around 62.6% of the total global population uses social media—that’s pretty crazy.
What’s more, the global population with access to the internet is much lower at just 5.44 billion. That means that an even more impressive 93% of the online world uses social media.
Source: DataReportal, Worldometers
How many social media platforms do people use?
According to the statistics, the typical social media user will use 6.7 social platforms in any given month. Keep in mind that this varies by age.
For example, for those aged between 16 and 24, the average is around 7.5, whereas for those aged 55 to 64, it’s around 5.2.
Source: DataReportal
How often do people visit social media platforms?
94.9% of internet users have visited a social network in the last month. This makes social networks the second most commonly-visited type of website/app. They’re beaten only by chat and messaging platforms, which 95.2% of internet users report visiting per month.
Interestingly, this stat also tells us that social media platforms may be even more popular than search engines. Only 81.8% of people in the same study were found to have visited a search engine in the last month, which is around 13% less than social networks.
Source: DataReportal
Social media growth
Now we know how many people use social media today, let’s look at how that’s changed over time and how it may change in the future.
How much has social media usage increased?
The table below shows the number of social media users in April of each year for the last 10 years. As you can see, usage has grown rapidly, increasing by around 164% in a single decade.
| Year | Number of social media users |
| 2024 | 5.074 billion (+5.4%) |
| 2023 | 4.851 billion (+3.2%) |
| 2022 | 4.663 billion (+7.4%) |
| 2021 | 4.343 billion (+14%) |
| 2020 | 3.822 billion (+8.3%) |
| 2019 | 3.528 billion (+6.5%) |
| 2018 | 3.314 billion (+13%) |
| 2017 | 2.923 billion (+20%) |
| 2016 | 2.433 billion (+13%) |
| 2015 | 2.150 billion (+12%) |
| 2014 | 1.922 billion |
Source: DataReportal
What’s the growth rate of social media?
There were +259 million more social media users this year compared to last. That works out at an annualized growth rate of 5.4% year-over-year. That means social media usage is outpacing the growth of both the global population (+0.9%) and internet usage (+3.4%) at large.
Source: DataReportal
How often do people sign up for social media?
Some quick math tells us, based on the increase in social media users over a year, that there are around 8.2 new social media users every second. That’s around 492 new users per minute and around 29,520 per hour.
It’s likely that since you clicked on this page, hundreds of people will have begun to make their first foray into the world of social media.
Source: DataReportal
Social media usage by platform
What is the most popular social media platform? Well, it depends on which metric you look at. Here are some statistics that shed light on that very important question…
Which social media platform has the most users?
According to the latest data, Facebook still has more monthly active users than any other social network. In total, around 3.065 billion people use Facebook, which puts it significantly ahead of all of its competitors.
See the table below for a breakdown of the monthly active user figures of all the leading social media sites.
| Social media platforms | Number of users |
| 3.06 billion | |
| YouTube | 2.5 billion |
| 2 billion | |
| 2 billion | |
| TikTok | 1.58 billion |
| 1.34 billion | |
| Facebook Messenger | 1.01 billion |
| Telegram | 900 million |
| Snapchat | 800 million |
| X | 611 million |
| 498 million |
Source: DataReportal
Which mobile social media app is opened most often?
Data.ai keeps track of the average number of iPhone and Android phone handsets on which different social media apps were opened within a given period. YouTube was the most-opened app, giving it an index score of 100.
The second most opened app was WhatsApp, with an index score of 83.4. This means that Facebook was only opened 83.4% as often as YouTube.
The table below shows a ranking of the most used social media smartphone apps by their index score.
| Social media app | Index score (app opens) |
| YouTube | 100 |
| 83.4 | |
| 83.2 | |
| 68 | |
| Facebook Messenger | 51.5 |
| TikTok | 42.8 |
| Telegram | 32 |
| Snapchat | 24 |
| 22.2 | |
| 18.1 |
Source: DataReportal
Which social media platform do users spend the most time on?
The average user spends 31 hours and 47 minutes on TikTok every month, according to the latest data. That makes it the most used social media platform by ATPU. YouTube came a close second with an ATPU of 27 hours 43 minutes.
| Social media platform | Average time per user (ATPU) |
| TikTok | 31h 47m |
| YouTube | 27h 43m |
| 19h 27m | |
| 16h 58m | |
| 16h 28m | |
| Line | 8h 4m |
| X | 5h 19m |
| Telegram | 3h 56m |
| Discord | 3h 47m |
| Snapchat | 3h 35m |
| 3h 32m |
Source: DataReportal
Which social media platform has the highest daily open rate?
Of all social media apps, WhatsApp has the highest daily open rate—83.6% of WhatsApp users check it every day. Facebook has the second-highest daily open rate at 64.1%
| Social media platform | Daily open rate |
| 83.6% | |
| 64.1% | |
| YouTube | 63.1% |
| Line | 62.8% |
| 61.6% | |
| TikTok | 61.4% |
Source: DataReportal
Which social media platform has the highest average session duration?
YouTube users stay on the app for 7 minutes 37 seconds after opening it, on average, making it the top social media platform by average session duration. TikTok comes second with an average session duration of 5 minutes 52 seconds.
| Social media platform | Average session duration |
| YouTube | 7 minutes 37 seconds |
| TikTok | 5 minutes 52 seconds |
| 3 minutes 44 seconds | |
| 2 minutes 51 seconds | |
| 2 minutes 38 seconds | |
| X | 2 minutes 21 seconds |
| 2 minutes 11 seconds |
Source: DataReportal
Which social media platform has the largest advertising reach?
YouTube has the largest advertising reach of any social platform, with an advertising audience of 2.5 billion people. Facebook comes a close second with an advertising audience of 2.24 billion people.
| Social media platform | Size of advertising audience |
| 2.24 billion | |
| 1.68 billion | |
| TikTok | 1.58 billion |
| 1.07 billion | |
| Facebook Messenger | 1.01 billion |
| Snapchat | 675 million |
| X | 611 million |
| 317 million | |
| 233 million |
(Source: DataReportal)
Which social media platform do marketers use most?
Facebook is the most used social media platform among marketers. 89% of surveyed marketing professionals report using Facebook to promote their companies as of last year. Instagram was the second most used at 80%.
Source: Statista1
What social media platforms do users like best?
WhatsApp and Instagram are the world’s favorite social media platforms, according to a recent survey. Users were asked which platform they liked best, and WhatsApp and Instagram both received 21% of the vote.
Source: Global Web Index
Social media usage around the world
Next, let’s look at some statistics about how countries and regions differ when it comes to social media usage.
Which country has the highest social media adoption rate?
According to DataReportal, the U.A.E is the country with the highest social media penetration rate. It has an adoption rate of 115%, which means there are more social media identities in the U.A.E than citizens. This is likely due to factors like duplicate accounts.
Kuwait has the second-highest social media adoption rate at 98.4%. Qatar comes third at 97%, Saudi Arabia is fourth at 96.2%, and South Korea is fifth at 93.4%
Source: DataReportal
Which country has the lowest social media adoption rate?
North Korea has the lowest social media adoption rate in the world with close to 0% of the country’s population on social. This is mainly due to the fact that internet access is not generally available in North Korea, with access limited to high-level officials.
Other countries with very low social media adoption rates include Eritrea (0.3%), Niger (2.3%), the Central African Republic (2.8%), and Turkmenistan (3.2%)
Source: DataReportal
Which region has the highest social media adoption rate?
Eastern Asia is the region with the highest social media adoption rate, with 96.3% of the population on social.
Other regions with high social media adoption rates include Central America (85.1%), Western Asia (84.1%), South-Eastern Asia (83.7%), and Western Europe (82.8%).
North America has a social media adoption rate of 73.1%.
Which region has the lowest social media adoption rate?
Middle Africa has the lowest social media adoption rate of any region at just 30.9%. Other regions with low social media adoption rates include Western Africa (39%), Eastern Africa (39.1%), Central Asia (49.6%), and Southern Africa (56%).
Source: DataReportal
Social media user demographics
Next, let’s look at some statistics that tell us more about the demographics of social media users.
Social media use by gender
Globally, men are more likely to use social media than women:
- 53.4% are male
- 46.6% are female
However, the gender split varies substantially from region to region. For example, it’s close to 50-50 in regions like Western, Southern, and Northern Europe, as well as Northern and Central America.
However, the gender split skews heavily male in most of Africa, as well as Southern, Central, and Western Asia, which tips the overall global balance.
Source: DataReportal
Social media use by income
For most social media channels, statistics show that usage increases with income (in the US).
For example, the data below shows the percentage of US adults who use Instagram in each income bracket (per Pew Research):
- 37% of those who earn <$30k
- 36% of those who earn $30-69.9k
- 49% of those who earn $70-99.9k
- 54% of those who earn $100k+
However, TikTok is a major exception to this rule. It’s one of the few social media platforms in which usage in the US negatively correlates with income:
- 36% of those who earn <$30k
- 37% of those who earn $30-69.9k
- 34% of those who earn $70-99.9k
- 27% of those who earn $100k+
Source: Pew Research Center
Social media use by political affiliation
According to the statistics, in the US, more Democrats use most of the leading social media platforms than Republicans.
The exception to this is Facebook, which is the only platform with a Republican lean (according to data from Pew Research):
- 70% of Republicans use Facebook
- 67% of Democrats use Facebook
Source: Pew Research Center
Time spent on social media
Next, we’ll look at some statistics that tell us more about how long users spend on social.
How long do people spend on social media?
The average social media user spends 2 hours 20 minutes per day on social. That works out at almost 3 full days per month.
Also interesting to note: The world spends a combined total of 12 billion hours on social daily. That’s the equivalent of 1.35 million years, every single day.
Notably, though, the average length of time spent on social is actually down by -2.7% (-4 mins) year-over-year.
Source: GWI, DataReportal
What percentage of online time is spent on social media?
The average time spent using the internet generally is 6 hours 35 minutes, which tells us that on average, people spend 35.4% of their online time on social media.
Some quick math also tells us that people spend roughly 14% of their waking lives on social media.
Source: GWI, DataReportal
Time spent on social media by age group
Gen Z users spend significantly more time on social media per day than older generations:
- Gen Z – 2 hours 51 minutes (-3m since 2020)
- Baby Boomers – 1 hour 31 minutes
However, the trends say this may be beginning to even out. Since 2020, Gen Z’s daily time spent on social media has decreased by 3 minutes. While in the same period, Baby Boomers daily time spent on social media increased by 14 minutes.
Source: GWI
Reasons for using social media
Here are a couple of statistics that tell us the reasons why consumers and businesses use social media.
Why do people use social media?
According to a recent survey, 49.7% of people use social media to keep in touch with friends and family. This makes it the top social media use case amongst consumers.
Other reasons people use social media include to fill their spare time (38%), to read news stories (34.3%), to discover content (30%), and to see what’s being talked about (28.8%).
Source: DataReportal
Why do companies use social media?
The main reason companies use social media is to raise brand awareness. According to a recent survey, 51% of surveyed marketers say this is their number one goal.
The second most common reason given was to ‘increase brand awareness’, and the third was to ‘connect with customers’.
Source: Meltwater
Social media industry statistics
Next, let’s look at some statistics about the social media industry at large, including the size of the market.
How much is the social media market worth?
The social media market will reach $251.45 billion (USD) this year, according to estimations from The Business Research Company. That’s estimated to increase from $219.06 billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 14.8%.
Furthermore, the market is expected to continue to grow to $413.6 billion by 2028.
That’s estimated to increase from 219.06B in 2023 at a CAGR of 14.8%. Also expected to grow to 413.16B in 2028.
Source: The Business Research Company
Where do social media revenues come from?
The bulk of social media market revenues come from social media ads, as well as income from paid subscription services (e.g. X Premium).
According to estimates from Statista, the average ad spend per social media user is around $39.70 USD, which should give you an idea of just how much advertising revenue these platforms generate.
Source: The Business Research Company, Statista2
Social media for business statistics
Next, we’ll look at some social media statistics
How much do businesses spend on social media?
The average business spends 23% of its marketing budget on paid social media ads according to a survey of marketers by Meltwater. The survey also found that 72% of businesses run social media ads.
Source: Meltwater
How do brands measure ROI on social media?
69% of brands look at engagement metrics to measure social ROI, making this the top KPI tracked. A further 51% look at impressions/views, 49% look at followers, 43% look at clicks/traffic, 21% look at leads, and 14% look at sales/revenue metrics.
Source: Meltwater
How important is social media to businesses?
45% of surveyed social media marketers think organic social media will be more important this year compared to last, and a further 43% say it will remain equally important. Only 6.3% say social media is becoming less important.
Source: Meltwater, DataReportal
How are brands using AI for social media?
One of the biggest trends of the last few years has been the growth of AI. This is true in most sectors, but particularly so in social media.
The vast majority of brands/marketers are now using AI to help with their social media efforts:
- 86% use AI to edit/refine social media text
- 85% use AI to produce social media ad text from scratch
- 82% use AI to develop new ideas for posts
- 59% use AI to produce customer support text
- 54% use AI to edit images for social media
- 52% use AI to generate images for social media
- 46% use an AI chatbot to help with their social media efforts.
Source: Hootsuite
Final thoughts
Hopefully, these statistics have provided some useful insights for you to take away and given you a better idea of what the social media landscape looks like this year.
For more information about each social network (including how many social media users use each of them), check out my ranking of the 22 leading social media platforms.
And if you’re planning to step up your social media efforts this year, don’t forget to read my roundup of the best social media scheduler tools.
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