47 Facebook Statistics, Facts & Trends For 2024
Looking for the latest Facebook statistics? You’re in the right place.
We’ve updated our old roundup of Facebook stats with fresh new data pulled from industry reports published within the last year or two.
These statistics reveal incredible insights about the world’s leading social media network, the people who use it, and the trends that are shaping the platform.
Facebook usage statistics
First, let’s take a look at some Facebook statistics that reveal how many people are using the platform across the world.
1. Facebook has 2.06 billion daily active users (DAUs)…
This is accurate as of June 2023, according to Meta’s Q2 investor report.
Interestingly, Facebook’s DAUs were up by 5% year-over-year, which shows that contrary to popular opinion, the platform is still growing.
If we look at Meta’s complete Family of Apps (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp), the number of DAUs is even higher at 3.07 billion.
Source: Meta Investor Relations
2. …and 3.03 billion monthly active users (MAUs)
Again, this comes from Meta’s investor report for the second quarter of 2023. As with DAUs, MAUs are also up year-over-year, but the growth is slightly less impressive at 3%
To put this figure into perspective, consider the fact that there were only 100 million monthly active Facebook users as of 2008 and just a little over a billion a decade ago in 2013.
The number of MAUs across Meta’s Family of Apps is even higher at 3.88 billion.
Source: Meta Investor Relations, Statista3
3. Facebook is the most used social platform in the world…
It’s been a bit of a rough few years for Facebook.
First, there was the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Then, the costly and not-so-well-received rebranding to Meta.
Next came massive layoffs of 11,000 of the company’s workforce as the platform struggled to get its finances in order following a huge drop in stock value.
But through all that, Facebook has retained its position as the world’s leading social media platform, at least in user figures. And by a wide margin.
It has almost 500 million more MAUs than its closest competitor, YouTube, and a billion more than Instagram. Despite its meteoric growth, TikTok still falls far behind with only a little over a third of FB’s total MAUs.
Source: We Are Social
4. …but only the public’s third favorite social media platform
Facebook might be the most widely-used social platform, but it isn’t the best-loved.
That title goes to WhatsApp, which 15.8% of active social media users highlighted as their favorite. Instagram came second with 14.3% of the vote, and Facebook ranked a close third with 14.2%. Still, that’s significantly more than TikTok (6.1%) and Twitter (3.4%).
Source: We Are Social
5. 57.3% of total internet users are on Facebook
This could be considered Facebook’s global market penetration rate. Of all the people out there with access to the internet, over half have signed up for a Facebook account. That’s pretty crazy if you think about it.
Source: We Are Social
6. 82.3% of North Americans are on Facebook
NA has the highest Facebook penetration rate of any region on Earth.
It’s followed by Latin America/Caribbean, where 77.8% of people use Facebook. Then, Europe (67.6%), Oceania/Australia (65.6%), the Middle East (57.3%), Asia (24.8%), and Africa (20.83%).
The low Asian penetration rate is largely due to the fact that Facebook has been banned in China. And the low adoption rate in Africa is largely due to limited internet access amongst the general population.
Source: Statista2
7. Facebook gets 13.8 billion website visits a month
And 3.47 billion of those visits are from unique visitors. This makes Facebook the third most visited website in the world. It still lags far behind Google (113 billion visits) and YouTube (94.8 billion visits).
Source: We Are Social
8. 71.1% use Facebook to message family and friends
This makes messaging friends and family the number one Facebook use case. It was the most popular activity amongst active users in the study.
The second most common activity on Facebook is to post or share videos or photos (62.9%), the third is to keep up to date with news and events (59.5%), the fourth is to follow/research brands and products (55.2%), and the fifth is to find funny or entertaining content (54.5%).
Interestingly, answers to this question were markedly different on different platforms. On Instagram, for example, sharing photos/videos was the most popular activity. On Pinterest, the top activity was to follow and research brands and products.
On Reddit and TikTok, it was to look for funny or entertaining content. And on Twitter, it was to keep up to date with recent news and events.
Source: We Are Social
Facebook user statistics
Next, let’s look at some statistics about the demographics of Facebook’s user base
9. 56.8% of Facebook users are male…
…which means that only 43.2% of Facebook users are female (male/female are the only two genders reported by Facebook’s self-service advertising tools).
It’s likely that the reason Facebook demographics skew towards male is influenced by the fact that, around the world, men are more likely to have access to the internet.
Source: We Are Social
10. The most common age bracket of Facebook users is 25-34
Men in this age bracket accounted for 17.6% of global Facebook users, and women in this bracket accounted for 12.3%. Combined, that’s almost a third of Facebook’s total audience.
Source: Statista1
11. The least common age bracket of Facebook users is 13-17
Female users this age account for just 2.1% of the total Facebook audience, while male users account for 2.7%, for a combined total of 4.8%.
65+ was the second least-common age bracket, accounting for around 5.6% of Facebook’s total user base.
Source: Statista1
12. 77.4% of Facebook users also use Instagram
This makes Instagram the platform with the most cross-over with Facebook when it comes to users.
This is unsurprising, given that Facebook and Instagram are closely tied (both owned by Meta) and are the two largest social media platforms in the world (not including YouTube).
Source: We Are Social
13. Only 0.6% of Facebook’s users don’t use any other social media platform
As this stat shows, social media users don’t tend to stick to just one platform—they use different platforms for different things. Only a tiny fraction of Facebook’s users aren’t also active on any of its competitors.
Source: We Are Social
14. The average Facebook user spends 19.7 hours on the platform per month
This is specifically referring to those using mobile devices and comes from data on Android apps.
The exact figure is 19 hours and 43 minutes. That makes the Facebook app the third top social platform in terms of average time spent on the app per user per month.
TikTok came first with an average use time of 23 hours and 28 minutes per month, while YouTube ranks second at 23 hours and 09 minutes per month.
Source: We Are Social
15. Mexicans spend more time on Facebook than users in any other country
In Mexico specifically, Facebook users access the platform for 24.5 hours each month, on average. India came second with an average monthly usage time of 21.4 hours. Both come above the worldwide average of 19.7 hours.
The USA ranks towards the middle of the table, with an average monthly usage time of 15.5 hours (less than the global average). South Korea is one of the countries with the lowest average Facebook monthly usage time at just 7.1 hours.
Source: We Are Social
16. 49.9% of Facebook’s audience speaks English
Unsurprisingly, English is the most commonly spoken language amongst Facebook’s advertising audience, accounting for almost half of the user base.
Spanish was the second most commonly spoken language on Facebook at 15.1%. Hindi came third at 8.3%, Arabic fourth at 7.2%, and Portuguese fifth at 6.4%.
Source: We Are Social
Facebook advertising statistics
Now let’s look at some Facebook statistics that are relevant to advertisers.
17. The total potential ad reach on Facebook is 1.98 billion
You might have noticed that that’s a fair bit less than the total number of users on Facebook. And the reason for that is that not all users on Facebook can be served ads, whether due to governmental restrictions in certain countries or otherwise.
Interestingly, Facebook’s total potential ad reach increased between January 2021 and July 2022, but since then, it’s been falling. From October 2022 to January 2023, ad reach dropped by 4.6%.
Source: We Are Social
18. Facebook’s global ARPU (average revenue per user) is $9.62 USD…
This is the amount of money Facebook generates in ad revenue for each user on the platform, averaged out globally. ARPU is down 11% from January to April 2023 but up 0.8% YOY.
Source: We Are Social
19. …but ARPU is $48.85 in the US and Canada
Facebook’s ARPU varies considerably by location, and as this stat shows, it’s much higher in North America than elsewhere.
Europe is also much higher than the global average at $15.51, whereas ARPU in the Asia-Pacific is lower at $4.52. And in the rest of the world, it’s just $3.35
Source: We Are Social
20. The average Facebook user clicks on 12 ads a month
That works out at around two ad clicks every five days.
Interestingly, women seem more likely to click ads on Facebook than men. Female users click 14 ads a month on average, whereas male users click only 10 ads a month.
Source: We Are Social
Facebook engagement benchmarks
Here are some Facebook engagement statistics that you can benchmark your own Facebook marketing performance against.
21. The average Facebook page shares 1.27 posts per day
That works out at around 8 to 9 posts a week or 38 posts a month.
Of those posts, 30.2% are photo posts, 17.4% are Facebook video posts, 50.6% are link posts, and 1.8% are status posts. If you’re running your own Facebook page, consider a similar content mix when planning your campaign.
Source: We Are Social
22. The average engagement rate of Facebook page posts is 0.07%
That may seem small, but keep in mind that it’s calculated as the number of engagements by total page fans rather than by impressions.
And smaller pages seem to do significantly better than this figure would suggest. Pages with under 10k fans have an average engagement rate of 0.31%, and those with 10-100k fans have an average engagement rate of 0.20%.
In contrast, pages with 100k+ fans have an average engagement rate of just 0.05%, which brings the overall average down.
Source: We Are Social
Related Reading: The Best Time To Post On Facebook For Engagement
23. The average Facebook user likes 1 page over their lifetime…
Page likes seem to be fairly precious on Facebook. As this stat shows, the average user will only like one page over the entire lifetime of their account.
Source: We Are Social
24. … and 11 posts a month
Facebook users are much more likely to like posts than Facebook pages. Women like 12 posts a month, on average, whereas men like 10 posts a month.
Source: We Are Social
25. The average Facebook user leaves 5 comments a month…
Again, female users demonstrate higher levels of engagement on Facebook than male users. Women leave 7 comments a month on average, whereas men leave 4.
Source: We Are Social
26. …and shares 1 post a month
Shares are the holy grail of Facebook engagements as they help to make your posts go viral, but they’re much harder to come by than likes and comments. The average user will only share one post a month.
Source: We Are Social
27. Short videos (2-5 minutes) generate the most engagement
Reels are big on Facebook right now, and that’s because short-form videos generate a ton of engagement. It’s this fact that has driven the meteoric rise of TikTok. So if you want more engagement on Facebook, make sure you’re including short videos in your content mix.
Source: ProfitBlitz
Facebook financial statistics
Here are some stats related to Facebook’s financials, as per their latest investor reports.
28. Meta reported revenues of $32 billion in the second quarter of the year…
Meta (the parent company behind Facebook) had a strong quarter in terms of revenue. They earned $32 billion in Q2 this year, which is up 11% year-over-year and 12% YOY on a constant currency basis.
Source: Meta Investor Relations
29. …and costs/expenses of $22.61 billion
Again, this is according to their latest quarterly report at the time of writing. The $22.61 billion figure includes accrued legal expenses and restructuring charges.
If we subtract that from revenue, it works out to be a little under $9.4 billion.
Source: Meta Investor Relations
30. Meta employs 71,469 people
This was the headcount as of June 30, 2023. Notably, this is a decrease of 14% YOY, which can be attributed to the 2023 layoffs, in which Facebook followed in Twitter’s footsteps and let go of 11,000 of its workers.
Around half of the employees impacted by these layoffs were still included in the Q2 headcount, so the total employment figure may drop significantly again in the next quarterly report
Source: Meta Investor Relations
Facebook transparency statistics
Facebook frequently publishes reports to its Transparency Center to give the public more visibility into how they enforce policies and protect their user’s data and intellectual property. Here are some key statistics from some of the latest transparency reports.
31. Only 0.01% – 0.02% of views on Facebook go to content containing hate speech
In other words, for every 10k posts people saw on Facebook in the first quarter of this year, only 1-2 of them contained hate speech.
This isn’t perfect, but it’s much better than it was a few years ago. For comparison, between July and September 2020, around 0.10% – 0.11% of views showed hate speech violations. That’s 10-11 posts out of every 10k posts people saw.
Source: Facebook Community Standards Enforcement
32. Facebook took action against 10.7 million pieces of hate speech content in the first quarter of this year
82% of these hate speech violations were found and actioned by Facebook themselves, while the other 18% were reported by Facebook users.
Again, this shows a big improvement in Facebook’s ability to detect and stamp out hate speech. For comparison, only 23.6% of hate speech content was found by Facebook in 2017, while 76.4% was reported by users.
Source: Facebook Community Standards Enforcement
33. Amongst content actioned for hate speech, there were 2 million appeals
Not everyone is convinced that Facebook gets it right when it comes to its removal of hate speech.
There were 2 million pieces of appealed content in the first quarter of 2023, but only 230k of them were restored after appeal.
This highlights a difficult problem facing Facebook (and every social media network): They must walk a fine line between ethical responsibility and problematic censorship. And that’s easier said than done.
Source: Facebook Community Standards Enforcement
34. There were over 760k IP reports submitted for trademark violations to Facebook in December 2022
In addition, there were also 657k reports submitted for content that violated copyright. This shows that finding and preventing intellectual property violations from occurring on Facebook is another big challenge facing the platform.
Source: Facebook Intellectual Property Report
35. Facebook removed 67.74% of content reported for trademark violations
Facebook took action on another two-thirds of the IP reports submitted to them at the end of last year for violations of trademark and on 81.31% of IP reports submitted for violations of copyright.
Source: Facebook Intellectual Property Report
36. Facebook received 239k government requests for data as of the last half of 2022
Governments around the world are increasingly pushing for more oversight of social media and for better access to user data. In the last half of last year, there were over 239,000 government data requests, and Facebook produced data for 76.8% of those requests.
Source: Facebook Government Requests for User Data
37. Of those requests, 213k were routine legal processes, and 26.8k were emergency disclosures
Facebook accepts three types of government requests for data: reservation requests (which ask Facebook to preserve account records for their users pending legal process), formal legal requests (requests pursuant to formal compulsory legal processes), and emergency requests (requests that require immediate action as there’s a risk of serious bodily harm or death ).
The vast majority of requests received followed routine legal processes, but 26,800 were emergency disclosure requests.
Source: Facebook Government Requests for User Data
38. 70.5% of Facebook Feed views come from sources that users are connected to
30% of the views on posts that appear on Facebook Feeds go to posts shared by the user’s friends. A further 16.1% go to posts from Groups that the users have joined, 17.6% go to content reshared by the user’s friends, and 6.8% go to posts from pages that they’ve followed.
In total, that means that 70.5% of all views on Facebook Feeds represent ‘connected’ content—content that’s shown to the user because they have some sort of connection with the sharer.
The other 29.5% comes from Feed recommendations (18.8%), which show content from sources users aren’t connected to but that the algorithm thinks they might like, and from other sources (10.7%).
Source: Facebook Widely Viewed Content Report
39. 92.3% of Feed content views in the US don’t include external links
The other 7.7% of views go to Facebook posts that do include a link. This may reflect Facebook’s desire to keep users on the platform and how this has influenced the content that their algorithm surfaces or it may just reflect user posting habits and preferences.
Source: Facebook Widely Viewed Content Report
40. The most widely viewed page on Facebook this year was LADBible
LADBible received a whopping 143.5 million content views in Q1 2023. The rest of the top 5 most widely-viewed pages include UNILAD (126.4m), LADbible Australia (116.4m), Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons (112.9m), and MetDaad (110.5m)
Source: Facebook Widely Viewed Content Report
Facebook trends
Here are a handful of statistics that highlight some recent trends that are transforming Facebook and how users interact with it.
41. Facebook’s focus this year is on AI and creator monetization
According to a recent post in Facebook’s Newsroom, the platform is focusing this year on advancing its use of artificial intelligence to provide a better user experience, and on creator monetization.
AI will be used mostly to improve Facebook’s recommendations and ranking system, but they’re also working on Llama 2, their open-source LLM (large language model) in partnership with Microsoft.
Source: Facebook Newsroom
42. There’s been a 7% increase in time spent on Facebook since the introduction of AI-recommended content
Facebook’s focus on AI seems to be paying off, as AI-recommended content from accounts that users don’t follow is the fastest-growing category of content on the platform. And time spent on Facebook is up by 7% since introducing AI-recommended content.
Source: Meta 2Q earnings call transcript
43. There are over 200 billion Reels plays on Facebook every day
Another trend we’ve seen over the last few years, and one that’s continuing this year, is Meta’s increasing focus on short-form video. This type of content is becoming more and more popular, and now, there are over 200 billion Reel plays across Facebook & Instagram every day.
Source: Meta 2Q earnings call transcript
Misc. Facebook & Meta statistics
Before we wrap up, here are a few more miscellaneous statistics that we thought you’d find interesting.
44. 200 million businesses use Meta services every month
The vast majority of Facebook users are, of course, regular consumers. But the platform is also used by over 200 million businesses.
Source: Facebook Community Standards
45. Facebook & Instagram users have raised a combined $7 billion for charitable causes
That’s roughly the equivalent of the entire GDP of Bermuda and has no doubt had a huge impact.
Source: Meta
46. 700 million people use augmented reality in Meta apps and devices every month
Meta, the company behind Facebook, has chosen to put a lot of money into developing VR and AR products, and 700 million people now use augmented reality across Meta apps and devices each month.
Source: Meta
47. Over 140 billion messages are sent across Facebook apps every day
Facebook is all about connection. Across its family of apps (including Facebook Messenger, Instagram, etc.), over 140 billion messages are sent every single day.
Source: Facebook Newsroom
Sources
- Facebook Community Standards
- Facebook Government Requests for User Data
- Facebook Intellectual Property Report
- Facebook Newsroom
- Facebook Widely Viewed Content Report
- Profit Blitz
- Meta
- Meta Investor Relations
- Meta 2Q earnings call transcript
- Statista1
- Statista2
- Statista3
- We Are Social
Final thoughts
That concludes our roundup of the latest Facebook statistics.
The biggest takeaway from this is that while Facebook may be facing increasing pressure and competition from platforms like TikTok, it’s still the most popular social media platform in the world—and it looks set to continue to be so for many years to come.
Want to learn even more about Facebook? Check out these posts:
- 25+ Top Facebook Live Statistics
- 31+ Top Facebook Messenger Statistics
- 41+ Top Social Media Statistics
Or dig into our marketing stats for other social media platforms:
Thanks for reading!
