How Many Users Does Facebook Have? Friends, Facts, and Figures

No one had ever heard of Facebook before 2003 - except at Harvard.

Harvard’s 12 houses - Ivy League versions of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin - published printed books of student photos at the beginning of each school year - face books. Sophomore Mark Zuckerberg put the photos on a website (originally called Facemash) and presented photos in pairs, allowing users to decide which was hotter with a thumbs-up “like” vote. The website was popular at Harvard and quickly spread to other college campuses, eventually becoming the Facebook we know today.

How many users does Facebook have these days? Let’s just say that over a quarter of the planet’s population is using FB, and not even the frequent data leak scandals can stem the tide. Below are some of the most important stats for the world’s most popular social network, so let’s take a look, shall we?

Facebook Usage Statistics 

1. Facebook is the world’s fourth most visited website. 

(Ahrefs) (Alexa)

According to Alexa’s Facebook traffic stats, the only websites with more traffic than Facebook are Alibaba’s e-retail marketplace Tmall.com and Google’s two properties, the Google homepage and YouTube. 

Facebook ranks third in the United States. YouTube reigns as the most visited website, followed by Wikipedia, while Twitter and Amazon are just behind Facebook.

2. 74% of users in the United States log in to Facebook at least once a day.

(Pew Research Center)

When it comes to time spent on Facebook, statistics by Pew Research Center show that it’s a very active platform. In the United States, 51% of its users visit the platform several times a day, and another 23% do so about once daily. Only 26% mentioned doing so less often. In this regard, Facebook is still ahead of its competitors Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, as well as Youtube.

 3. 71% of adults in the United States use Facebook, and 52% get their daily news from it.

(Pew Research Center)

According to statistics about Facebook users in the United States, over half of the adult Facebook users use the site as their primary news source. This makes it by far the most popular social network for news. For reference, only 28% get their news from Youtube, 17% from Twitter, 14% from Instagram, 8% from LinkedIn/Reddit and 6% from Snapchat.

4. The average Facebook user likes 13 posts per month.

(Hootsuite)

According to Hootsuite’s Facebook facts and statistics, the average Facebook user will also make around five comments and share one post per month.

5. Over 1.4 billion people are active on various Facebook groups every month.

(Facebook for Business)

Facebook page statistics gathered by the company for its Business Insights page also touch upon a popular feature of the social network - groups. This long-standing feature represents the company’s way of letting its Facebook demographics profile themselves according to their various interests. According to Facebook, activity within the over 10 million groups on the network represents a big part of Facebook’s global monthly activity.

6. 300 million people use Facebook Stories every day.

(Facebook)

Inspired by competitor Snapchat, Facebook launched the Stories feature back in August 2017. It provides users with an alternative way of posting updates about their life, which disappear within 24 hours, unlike traditional posts which are there until you delete them manually. These are also promoted to Facebook friends on their feeds, and can have various visual effects added. Around two million advertisers are part of those 300 million active users of the Story feature. Modern marketers have long since realized the power of Stories, as many Facebook marketing statistics show.

7. 36% of the top stories on Facebook are related to politics.

(Statista)

Facebook pages and political discourse have a complicated relationship. But How many Facebook users out there are discussing topics other than politics? According to Statista, Facebook trends show that other popular story categories are soft/general interest (17%), death (11%), science (10%), hard/general and economics (6%).

8. 15% of Facebook users make use of the site as a shopping platform.

(eMarketer)

According to EMarketer’s Facebook statistics for 2019, 15% of users mentioned that they shop on Facebook. The most common activity remains viewing photos (65%), followed by content sharing (57% to your timeline and 43% to individual users, watching videos (46%) and reading the news (38%). 

When it comes to the percentage of people who shop on social media, Pinterest with 47% is the only site with more success than Facebook. Instagram is third with 11%, followed by Twitter with 7% and Snapchat with 5%. On the other hand, most users promote their businesses on Instagram (9%), followed by Facebook and Twitter (7%), and Snapchat (6%).

9. More than 90 million small businesses use Facebook Business Tools and other FB products.  

(Facebook)

According to Facebook business statistics, nearly 100 million small business owners make use of tools such as Facebook Pixel, Login and Account Kit, APIs and SDKs and various social plugins. According to the company, these services help businesses to create millions of jobs.

10. Facebook had to remove 2.2 billion fake accounts from its platform in the first quarter of 2019 alone.

(Vox)

Facebook profile statistics show that the trend is worsening. The company had to delete 600,000 fake accounts in the first quarter of 2018 and 1.2 billion during the year’s final quarter.  Just how many people on Facebook are using it for nefarious purposes, though? It’s impossible to tell, as many fake account creators are spammers or impersonators, creating large volumes of fake accounts at one time.

It’s also difficult to gauge the precise numbers of fake accounts, because the company has several rules which can yield confusing results.

For example, if you want to create a Facebook business account and instead accidentally make a personal one, the system can flag the Facebook account as fake. 

Facebook User Statistics

11. There are 2.45 billion monthly active Facebook users worldwide.

(Statista)

The key word is active - these are not just any Facebook users that statistics show, but these are people who log in and use their accounts at least once per month. According to social media statistics, networks that see less total user traffic, such as LinkedIn, often boast total instead of active account numbers. More active networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter focus on the number of people who are actually logging in with some regularity. 

People often ask the question: how many users does Facebook have in total? But these numbers are hard even for Facebook to determine. What we can be sure of though is that the site’s active user base is continually growing, according to Facebook traffic statistics.

12. 57% of Facebook users globally are male.

(Statista)

According to Statista’s Facebook demographic statistics, men use the popular social networking platform more than women do globally. These stats look at only the main site’s users and do not count people using the popular Facebook Messenger app or other Facebook properties.

If we look at the United States, things are quite different. Facebook user demographics in America are slightly skewed towards women - 53.7% of American users are women, while only 46.3% are men. Considering that the United States is the world’s second-largest Facebook market, we can conclude that the ratio of female to male FB users is even smaller in the rest of the world.

13. 26.3% of the global population is on Facebook.

(Statista)

On a global scale men contribute more to the total number of Facebook users than women do. But how many internet users are actually on Facebook? According to Statista’s Facebook statistics from 2017, over one-quarter of the world’s population. 

The percentage varies by continent and is by far the highest in North America (Canada, the United States and Mexico) - 72.4%. Latin America and the Carribean are next with 57.3%, while Australia and Oceania average around 48.1%. 41.7% of Europe’s population and 34.6% of people in the Middle East are on Facebook. Finally, 13.8% and 12.7% of people in Asia and Africa are on Facebook, respectively.

Statistics on Facebook usage in Asia are heavily affected by China’s ban on the social network. So, how many users does Facebook have in China? It’s hard to tell. Many people there use VPNs, and many more use local alternatives such as QQ and WeChat, instead.

14. With 269 million active users, India has the largest Facebook population worldwide.

(Statista)

According to Statista’s research on the number of Facebook users by country, India has, by far, the largest active population in the world, whether they access FB from desktop or mobile devices.

The United States is second with 183 million, followed by Indonesia with 123 million and Brazil with 120 million. Mexico has 82 million, while the Philippines have 68 million active monthly users on Facebook. As of 2019, other top countries include Vietnam, Thailand, Egypt and Turkey.

15. Over 50% of Facebook users worldwide speak a language other than English.

(Facebook)

English is one of two official languages in India, the country with the world’s largest number of Facebook users. Then there’s the United States, the world’s second largest FB market. 

Despite that, Facebook’s global usage is driven primarily by people who do not speak English. This is why the company has an ongoing localization program, catering to over 100 languages that are in use on the platform today. AI technology is also utilized in expanding the localization efforts. With each major Facebook update, the company refines its process, although they, themselves, admit a lot of translation errors still occur.

16. In the United States, Facebook is most popular with people aged 25 to 29.

(Pew Research Center)

When it comes to Facebook age demographics in the United States, it’s clear that the network’s primary user base is a bit older these days compared to the average some years ago. 84% of people between 25 to 29 mentioned that they’ve used Facebook at least once. Those aged 30-49 were the second largest group with 79%, while the 18-24 group had 76%.

17. People aged 65+ are the largest growing Facebook demographic.

(eMarketer) (Pew Research Center)

Facebook statistics by age presented by EMarketer and Pew Research Center found that while only 26% of people born in 1945 or earlier used Facebook in 2018, the number rose to 37% in 2019. A slight increase was also noted for Baby Boomers and Millennials, while Gen X usage declined. Meanwhile, EMarketer used its statistics about Facebook to predict that we will see a 7% increase in the number of people over the age of 65 using Facebook worldwide. While it’s still a platform primarily used by younger people, these Facebook use statistics show that the platform’s average population is slowly becoming older.

18. Around half of US teens (ages 13-17) use Facebook, but it’s the most used social network platform for only 10% of them.

(Pew Research Center)

According to Facebook statistics from 2018, teens are not huge fans of Facebook. While 51% of US teens interviewed by the Pew Research Center say that they use Facebook, only a measly 10% say it’s their favorite social network. That honor belongs to Snapchat - 35% of the respondents in the survey mentioned it as their most-used social networking platform, just ahead of YouTube, which got 32% of the votes.

19. 87% of employees are connected with their coworkers on Facebook.

(Igloo Software)

According to Facebook friend statistics compiled by Igloo Software, Facebook significantly outperforms LinkedIn when it comes to the number of colleagues that the typical user has on his or her friends list. In fact, the average number of Facebook friends who work together outperforms both LinkedIn and Instagram put together, as each of those networks has only 42% of work related connections per user. 

Twitter came in fourth with 38%, followed by Snapchat with 16% and Pinterest with 9%. At a nearly 90% chance that your coworker is also a Facebook connection we can safely say that Facebook is an important pillar of work-related social networking, even if that is not its primary purpose.

20. Women are 40% more likely to create a Facebook Group that will become useful to people.

(Facebook Investor Relations)

According to Facebook Group statistics, women are more adept at creating groups that people will find useful in the long run. This probably has to do with the fact that men tend to join and create a lot more casual content groups, while women are more interested in groups that cater to a particular sphere of interest. For example, there are many groups where mothers and future mothers discuss parenthood and give helpful tips about raising children.     

Another reason, as noted by Facebook investor relations, is that women create 70% more fundraisers on the platform than men do.

21. 57% of American Facebook users believe they don’t have much control over what appears on their news feeds.

(Pew Research Center)

Personal Facebook statistics gathered by the Pew Research Center show that nearly two-thirds of people using Facebook in the United States are convinced that there isn’t much they can do to affect what appears on their news feed. In fact, only 14% believe that they can have a significant influence on what appears there, while 28% said that they have no control whatsoever. 

How many users does Facebook have who actively tried to change something, though? According to Pew Research Center, not that many. 63% of those interviewed said that they have not tried to actively influence what appears on their news feed. Therefore, we can conclude that a bit of the blame here is on the users themselves, as well. That being said, 53% said that they do not “get” how the algorithm behind the news feed works, and why certain content appears. Considering the number of Facebook users who are confused by the system, clearly it’s not explained well or honestly enough by the company.

22. 54% of Facebook users in the United States made changes to their privacy settings after finding out about Facebook data collection.

(Pew Research Center)

Remember the Facebook data collection scandal? There have been multiple allegations of Facebook data collection, but the largest one resulted in claims that Facebook sold personal data from about 87 million users to Cambridge Analytica.

Many people changed their approach to Facebook after the news leaked. Pew Research Center’s study found that 42% of people took a break from Facebook for a few weeks or more, while Facebook messenger statistics indicate that 26% deleted the app from their phone.

23. 74% of Facebook users in the United States are unaware that the platform collects data about their interests and personality traits.

(Pew Research Center)

We’ve covered a lot of Facebook facts and statistics so far, but this might be one one of the most worrying ones. Most people in the United States have absolutely no idea how Facebook makes its revenue and just how much of their privacy is compromised by actively participating on the platform. To be fair, while Facebook ad statistics can be easily accessed by the public, the company doesn’t exactly make a point to familiarize their users with the “Your Ad Preferences” page. 51% of people interviewed said that they don’t feel comfortable with the fact that Facebook collects this information and 27% don’t believe that the information gathered even represents them accurately.

Facebook Revenue Statistics

24. Facebook has a market cap of $592 billion as of December 2019.

(YCharts)

Facebook statistics by YCharts show that the company is still going strong, despite the setbacks caused by the data collection scandal. The Facebook net worth and market cap dropped dramatically between July and December 2018 and to a lesser extent during mid 2019. This aligns with renewed interest in the data leaks and Mark Zuckenberg’s trial. 

Nevertheless, as things settled down by the end of September 2019, the company started experiencing a growth trend, and is slowly catching up to its record market cap value of $627 billion from July 2018.

25. Facebook’s annual revenue for 2018 was $55.8 billion.

(Statista)

According to Facebook revenue statistics, despite the data leak controversy, the company still recorded a revenue of $55.8 billion in 2018. This represents a growth of over $15 billion from a revenue of $40.7 billion in 2017.

26. Facebook earned $17.65 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2019.

(Statista)

According to Statista’s Facebook site statistics, the company’s revenue gain has been dropping between Q4 of the previous year and Q1 of the next year for several years now. During the first three quarters of 2019, Facebook saw an increase in revenue from the first quarter’s $15 billion to a new record of $17.65 billion by the end of Q3.

This represents a year on year increase of nearly $4 billion, and the largest global revenue Facebook has made thus far. Advertising, especially on mobile devices is a key driver for these results.

Facebook Advertising Statistics

27. There are around seven million advertisers on Facebook.

(Statista)

Facebook ads statistics show that this number has increased by around a million advertisers since the first quarter of 2018. The main source of Facebook’s massive income is digital advertising, so while the company is allegedly dedicated to protecting its users’ privacy in the future, we need to be realistic. By posting Facebook photos, contributing to Facebook live statistics, sharing content, liking pages and participating actively, whether through FB mobile or other means, we’re actively helping them gather the data to sell to advertisers. In return we get to stay in touch with people around the world, shop and stay up to date with the latest events worldwide.

28. 94% of marketers use Facebook for advertising.

(Social Media Examiner)

Mark Zuckenberg’s platform is an incredibly dominant force in social media advertising. Nearly every marketer makes use of it for advertising purposes, but what about other social media statistics? Facebook’s other property, Instagram, is the second most popular network with marketers, growing from 66% to 73% usage in 2019. Twitter remains third, but dropped from 62% in 2018 to 59% in 2019. It’s closely followed by LinkedIn (58%) and YouTube (54%). Other Facebook competitors fared far worse, with Snapchat scoring only 6%.

29. Facebook is the most important social networking platform for 61% of advertisers.

(Social Media Examiner)

How many users does Facebook have who are not being advertised to actively? Not that many, considering how active advertisers are. Not only is Facebook used by just about every marketer, but two-thirds of advertisers say that it’s their preferred social network. This is a bit of a drop compared to 2018, when it was the social platform of choice for 67% of advertisers. However, Facebook is still a majorly dominant force considering that runners up LinkedIn and YouTube in second place are each the favorite platforms for only 14% of advertisers.

30. The average user clicks on 11 Facebook ads per month.

(Hootsuite)

According to Hootsuite’s statistics on Facebook ads, a typical user of the platform clicks on just over ten advertisements every month. Women in general tend to click on more ads (14) compared to men (10). This roughly translates to women clicking on an ad every other day while men do so on average once every three days. Considering how bombarded we are with advertisements on Facebook, this does not seem like such a large number, but it still adds up.

31. Facebook ad revenue in the United States is expected to reach $39.4 billion by 2021.

(Statista)

Facebook advertising statistics show that it’s a rapidly growing industry. The company’s $23.7 billion dollar advertising revenue in the United States is going to nearly double by 2021. The vast majority of it comes from mobile devices but Facebook desktop has a share in the revenue stream as well.

32. The average click-through rate for Facebook ads is 0.90% across all industries.

(WordStream) 

If you’re wondering what a click-through rate is, it is basically a ratio of consumers clicking on a link versus the number of total consumers who view a page or an ad. Across all of the industries making use of advertising, the rate is just shy of 1%. Facebook statistics show that legal advertisers have the highest click-through rate (CTR) with 1.61%, followed by the retail (1.59%) and clothing (1.24%) industries. On the other end of the scale, employment and job training see a CTR of only 0.47%, while finance and insurance are at 0.56%.

33. The average industry cost-per-click on Facebook ads is $1.72.

(WordStream) 

Cost-per-click or CPC is sometimes also referred to as pay-per-click ( PPC). It is a measure of how much money the advertisers are willing to pay per click on the advertisement that drives consumer traffic to their website. According to Wordstream, the finance and insurance industries are willing to pay the most money to generate traffic ($3.77). Customer services are willing to pay $3.02, while home improvement advertisers are willing to shell out $2.93. On the other end of the spectrum, advertisers in the clothing industry are willing to pay only $0.45, while those in the travel and hospitality field will pay around $0.63.

34. The average conversion rate for Facebook ads is 9.21% across all industries.

(WordStream) 

If a click-through rate is how many people have clicked on an ad after seeing it, a conversion rate simply refers to the number of actual purchases made compared to the number of clicks, i.e. how many people actually bought a product after clicking on an ad for it. Wordstream’s Facebook page traffic statistics show that across all industries, about one in nine clicks results in an actual purchase. The number is highest in the fitness sector (14.29%), followed by education (13.58%) and employment/job training (11.73%). On the other hand, technology (2.31%) and travel/hospitality (2.82%) have the lowest click-through rates across all industries on Facebook.

35. The average industry cost-per-action rate for Facebook ads is $18.68.

(WordStream) 

Cost-per-action or CPA is a metric used to determine how much it costs an advertiser in order to get their consumers to take action. Sometimes also referred to as cost-per-acquisition, it usually refers to sales, but not always. It can also refer to users filling out a form (registration, newsletter sign-up etc.) or even simply making a click. WordStream’s Facebook ad statistics show that the average cost across all industries is almost 20 bucks. The numbers here are much more extreme, though. On one end of the spectrum, we have the tech industry with an average CPA of $55.21, while on the other hand, the education CPA costs only $7.85. Other high spenders include home improvement ($44.66) and finance/insurance ($41.43), while the clothing industry ($10.98) and healthcare ($12.31) are among the lowest CPA spenders on the platform.

36. Facebook ads with headlines that contain four words tend to perform best.

(HubSpot)

Hubspot’s Facebook post statistics show that people love advertisers who are concise. Headlines of just a few words tend to be attention-grabbing, while link descriptions, themselves, can tell you more about the product being advertised. Even those shouldn’t be too elaborate, though. The word limit on link descriptions is 45 words, but people prefer them to be no longer than 15. If we’re talking about B2B, though, longer descriptions may be necessary, but headlines should still be kept short.

Facebook Mobile Statistics

37. Facebook owns all four of the most downloaded apps in the past decade. 

(App Annie)

We often hear talk of worrying topics like Facebook addiction statistics, Facebook bullying statistics, and Facebook stalking statistics. But there’s more to Facebook than just...well, Facebook. According to App Annie, in addition to FB and FB Messenger, the company’s two big acquisitions WhatsApp and Instagram are also in the top four most downloaded apps in the past decade.

Facebook app statistics dominate the market, but what were other notably popular apps during the last ten years? Fifth place was taken by Snapchat, sixth by Skype, followed by TikTok, UCBrowser, YouTube and Twitter.

38. 96% of active users access Facebook from mobile devices.

(Statista)

Facebook Mobile tops the app popularity charts. The Facebook app and the company’s dedicated FB Messenger are installed on almost every mobile device. An overwhelming majority of both Android and iOS users contribute to Facebook mobile stats on a daily basis. 

This doesn’t mean that 96% of people using the social network are doing so exclusively from mobile phones, simply that this is one of the main methods to make a Facebook login. Only 25% of its users access Facebook from desktop computers and just 16% do so from tablets.

39. The Facebook app has more than 5 billion downloads and 94 million ratings on the Google Play Store.

(App Store) (Google Play)

Mobile Facebook apps are huge on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Facebook’s main app is much better received on Android, though. The average rating on the Play Store is four stars, while the 388 thousand or so raters on App Store gave the app a fairly low 3.1 average rating. FB has also been downloaded over 5 billion times on Android.

40. With 1.3 billion active users, Facebook Messenger is the second most popular messaging app worldwide.

(Statista)

Only WhatsApp is ahead with 1.6 billion active monthly users. Facebook profile stats show that while a lot of people share Facebook images or use the Facebook people search, chatting on Messenger is still the most popular FB-related activity. Other popular messaging apps are WeChat ($1.133 billion), QQ Mobile (808 million), and Snapchat (314 million).

 41. 92% of Facebook’s ad revenue in 2018 came from mobile advertising.

(Statista)

Facebook ad revenue is primarily driven by mobile devices. Facebook earned over $50 billion in advertising revenue in 2018 alone. The percentage of the mobile revenue share has been steadily increasing over the past seven years, from a measly 11% in 2012, to well over 90% today. Mobile devices are an integral part of Facebook’s revenue-making strategy, and we can expect the platform to become even more focused on the mobile experience in the future.