Ranked: The World’s Most Popular Social Networks, and Who Owns Them
by Carmen Ang and Christina Kostandi via Visual Capitalist
The World’s Most Popular Social Networks, and Who Owns Them
Currently, there are over 4.5 billion people around the world who use some form of social media—about 57% of the global population.
Yet, while social media’s audience is widespread and diverse, just a handful of companies control a majority of the world’s most popular social media platforms. Meta, the tech giant formerly known as Facebook, owns four of the five most widely used platforms.
This graphic highlights the biggest social networks across the globe, measured by their monthly active users (MAUs).
Note: We’ll be using terms like “social network” and “social platform” interchangeably to refer to various messaging, video, and image-sharing platforms that have social attributes built in.
Top Social Platforms by Monthly Active Users
To measure each platform’s MAUs, we dug into various sources, including the most recent company SEC filings, and quarterly earnings reports.
A majority of Meta’s user base comes from its most popular platform, Facebook—the social media giant currently has around 2.9 billion MAUs worldwide. Search:
| Rank | Platform name | Parent company | Country | Monthly active users, in millions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Meta |  U.S. | 2,910 | |
| #2 | YouTube | Alphabet | U.S. | 2,291 |
| #3 | Meta | U.S. | 2,000 | |
| #4 | Messenger | Meta | U.S. | 1,300 |
| #5 | Meta | U.S. | 1,287 | |
| #6 | Tencent |  China | 1,225 | |
| #7 | Kuaishou | Kuaishou | China | 1,000 |
| #8 | TikTok | Bytedance | China | 1,000 |
| #9 | Telegram | Telegram |  UAE | 600 |
| #10 | Qzone | Tencent | China | 600 |
Where in the world are Facebook users located? The platform’s biggest user base comes from India, with an audience size of almost 350 million. Its second-largest user base is the United States, with 193.9 million users, while Indonesia comes in third with 142.5 million.
But Facebook isn’t the only social giant in Meta’s network of platforms. WhatsApp has approximately 2 billion MAUs, making it Meta’s second-largest platform, and the third-largest social network overall.
Like Facebook, a significant number of WhatsApp users are located in India, with roughly 390 million users. Brazil has a large portion of WhatsApp users as well, with an audience size of 108 million.
Read the whole article here.