Technology
Ranked: The World’s Most Popular Social Networks, and Who Owns Them
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.
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 |
#11 | Tencent | 🇨🇳 China | 591 | |
#12 | Sina | 🇨🇳 China | 566 | |
#13 | Douyin | Bytedance | 🇨🇳 China | 550 |
#14 | Snapchat | Snap | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 538 |
#15 | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 463 | ||
#16 | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 454 | ||
#17 | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 430 | ||
#18 | Microsoft | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 310 | |
#19 | Quora | Quora | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 300 |
#20 | Skype | Microsoft | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 300 |
#21 | Tieba | Baidu | 🇨🇳 China | 300 |
#22 | Viber | Rakuten | 🇯🇵 Japan | 250 |
#23 | Teams | Microsoft | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 250 |
#24 | imo | PageBites | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 212 |
#25 | Line | Naver | 🇰🇷 South Korea | 169 |
#26 | Picsart | Picsart | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 150 |
#27 | Likee | Bigo Live | 🇸🇬 Singapore | 150 |
#28 | Discord | Discord | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 140 |
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.
The Billion Users Club
Meta currently dominates the social network landscape, with a combined total of 7.5 billion MAUs across all four of its platforms. However, a few other companies also hit the one billion MAU mark across all their platforms on the list:
Rank | Parent company | # of companies on the list | Country | Combined MUAs |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Meta | 4 | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 7.5 billion |
2 | Tencent | 3 | 🇨🇳 China | 2.4 billion |
3 | Alphabet | 1 | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 2.3 billion |
4 | Bytedance | 2 | 🇨🇳 China | 1.6 billion |
5 | Kuaishou | 1 | 🇨🇳 China | 1 billion |
After Meta, Tencent has the second-highest reach thanks to its three platforms—WeChat, Qzone, and QQ. Of the three, WeChat is currently the most popular. On average, WeChat users send about 45 billion messages a day.
Third on the list is Alphabet, thanks to its one platform, YouTube. Founded in 2005, this video streaming platform currently has over 50 million content creators, who share approximately 500 hours of video content every minute.
Close behind Alphabet is Bytedance, with a combined 1.6 billion MAUs across its two platforms—Douyin and its international counterpart TikTok. While the apps share a lot of similarities, they function as completely separate entities, with different registration, content policies, and regulations.
Global Social Networks? Not Always
While social media networks often transcend country borders, it’s worth noting that the online realm does not completely escape the constraints and regulations of our physical world.
Since 2009, Facebook has been banned in China for not complying with censorship rules. Facebook was also blocked in Iran and Syria around the same time and has been blocked sporadically since.
In 2020, the Trump administration tried to enact a similar ban against TikTok, but the order was blocked by a federal judge and eventually revoked by the Biden administration a year later.
Despite various bans and roadblocks, it’s clear that social media platforms have seeped into the lives (and onto the screens) of users across the globe. And as internet access worldwide continues to grow, so too will the number of social media users.
Technology
Charting the Next Generation of Internet
In this graphic, Visual Capitalist has partnered with MSCI to explore the potential of satellite internet as the next generation of internet innovation.
Could Tomorrow’s Internet be Streamed from Space?
In 2023, 2.6 billion people could not access the internet. Today, companies worldwide are looking to innovative technology to ensure more people are online at the speed of today’s technology.
Could satellite internet provide the solution?
In collaboration with MSCI, we embarked on a journey to explore whether tomorrow’s internet could be streamed from space.
Satellite Internet’s Potential Customer Base
Millions of people live in rural communities or mobile homes, and many spend much of their lives at sea or have no fixed abode. So, they cannot access the internet simply because the technology is unavailable.
Satellite internet gives these communities access to the internet without requiring a fixed location. Consequently, the volume of people who could get online using satellite internet is significant:
Area | Potential Subscribers |
---|---|
Households Without Internet Access | 600,000,000 |
RVs | 11,000,000 |
Recreational Boats | 8,500,000 |
Ships | 100,000 |
Commercial Aircraft | 25,000 |
Advances in Satellite Technology
Satellite internet is not a new concept. However, it has only recently been that roadblocks around cost and long turnaround times have been overcome.
NASA’s space shuttle, until it was retired in 2011, was the only reusable means of transporting crew and cargo into orbit. It cost over $1.5 billion and took an average of 252 days to launch and refurbish.
In stark contrast, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 can now launch objects into orbit and maintain them at a fraction of the time and cost, less than 1% of the space shuttle’s cost.
Average Rocket Turnaround Time | Average Launch/Refurbishment Cost | |
---|---|---|
Falcon 9* | 21 days | < $1,000,000 |
Space Shuttle | 252 days | $1,500,000,000 (approximately) |
Satellites are now deployed 300 miles in low Earth orbit (LEO) rather than 22,000 miles above Earth in Geostationary Orbit (GEO), previously the typical satellite deployment altitude.
What this means for the consumer is that satellite internet streamed from LEO has a latency of 40 ms, which is an optimal internet connection. Especially when compared to the 700 ms stream latency experienced with satellite internet streamed from GEO.
What Would it Take to Build a Satellite Internet?
SpaceX, the private company that operates Starlink, currently has 4,500 satellites. However, the company believes it will require 10 times this number to provide comprehensive satellite internet coverage.
Charting the number of active satellites reveals that, despite the increasing number of active satellites, many more must be launched to create a comprehensive satellite internet.
Year | Number of Active Satellites |
---|---|
2022 | 6,905 |
2021 | 4,800 |
2020 | 3,256 |
2019 | 2,272 |
2018 | 2,027 |
2017 | 1,778 |
2016 | 1,462 |
2015 | 1,364 |
2014 | 1,262 |
2013 | 1,187 |
Next-Generation Internet Innovation
Innovation is at the heart of the internet’s next generation, and the MSCI Next Generation Innovation Index exposes investors to companies that can take advantage of potentially disruptive technologies like satellite internet.
You can gain exposure to companies advancing access to the internet with four indexes:
- MSCI ACWI IMI Next Generation Internet Innovation Index
- MSCI World IMI Next Generation Internet Innovation 30 Index
- MSCI China All Shares IMI Next Generation Internet Innovation Index
- MSCI China A Onshore IMI Next Generation Internet Innovation Index
MSCI thematic indexes are objective, rules-based, and regularly updated to focus on specific emerging trends that could evolve.
Click here to explore the MSCI thematic indexes
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