Facebook: Statistics & Business Metrics (08/20)

Facebook is one of the most powerful companies on the planet. Operating multiple social networks and messenger apps, Facebook defines how we connect with other people. But what makes the company actually tick? Find out with our latest Facebook statistics guide which we update regularly with the latest numbers.

Key Facts: Facebook by the numbers

Mark Zuckerberg at the F8 conference (Source: Facebook Inc. Media Kit)

Facebook Financial statistics

• In 2018 Facebook generated 55.83 billion USD in revenue globally, which is up by 37% year-over-year.(3)
• In 2018 Facebook generated 55.01 billion USD in ad revenue, which is up by 38% year-over-year.(3)
• In 2018 Facebook had a net income of 22.11 billion USD globally.(3)

• In 2018 Facebook reported a Free Cash Flow of 15.35 billion USD.(3)
• In 2018 Facebook reported that total costs and expenses were 30.93 billion USD.(3)
• In 2018 Facebook reported that capital expenditures were 13.92 billion USD.(3)
• In 2018 Facebook reported that their effective tax rate was 13%.(3)
• As of 30.10.2019 Facebook reported that they generated 17.65 billion USD in Q3-2019.(4)
• In their Initial Public Offering (IPO) Facebook raised more than 16 billion USD.(8)

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Facebook user statistics

• In 2018 Facebook reported they have 1.52 billion daily active users (DAUs) on average for December 2018, which represents an increase of 9% year-over-year.(3)
• In 2018 Facebook reported they have 2.32 billion monthly active users (MAUs), which represents an increase of 9% year-over-year.(3)
• As of 30.10.2019 Facebook reported that they had 2.44 billion monthly active users (MAUs) globally in Q3-2019.(4)
• As of 30.10.2019 Facebook reported that they had 1.00 monthly active users (MAUs) in Asia-Pacific in Q3-2019.(4)
• As of 30.10.2019 Facebook reported that they had 247 billion monthly active users (MAUs) in the USA & Canada in Q3-2019.(4)
• As of 30.10.2019 Facebook reported that they had 387 million monthly active users (MAUs) in Europe in Q3-2019.(4)
• Those numbers mean that roughly only 10% of Facebook’s users are from the USA & Canada.(4)

• Families connect on Facebook: 83% of parents are friends with their children on Facebook.(14)
• Facebook is still growing: The platform adds 500.000 Users a day.(15)
• Facebook is a truly global phenomenon: Worldwide 26.3% of the whole internet population is using Facebook.(17)
• On average a Facebook user 338 friends on the platform. The median number of friends is significantly lower than that. It is only 200 friends. Hence the success of Facebook is still dependent on the ability to connect its users with other users.(18)
• Funnily enough the platform might still be relevant to ones life even though somebody is not a user. Research found out that half of the internet users who personally do not have a Facebook account live with someone who does.(18)
• India is the growth driver of Facebook: With 269 million users India hast the most Facebook users globally. India is followed by the USA with 183 million users and Indonesia with 123 million users.(41)

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Facebook: Daily Active Users (DAUs) – Updated 08/20

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Facebook: Monthly Active Users (MAUs) – Updated 08/20

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Facebook Usage Statistics

• Despite negative press and data scandals, Facebook enjoys great popularity and a large user base: around seven-in-ten Americans (69%) use Facebook.(20)
• Around three-quarters (74%) of users use Facebook on a daily basis. This statistics is quite outstanding, as for instance only 63% use Instagram on a daily basis and Snapchat only has 61% daily returning visitors.(20)
• Facebook is female: Currently 3/4 of women in America use the service. This compares to 63% of male Facebook users.(20)
• Facebook is more prevalent amongst the digital literate: The platform is used more often in educated households, as 74% of adults who hold a college degree are Facebook users but only 61% of those who have a high school diploma or less.(20)

• Facebook struggles to attract teens:  Even though half of America’s teens are using Facebook, the company is no longer the dominant player in the field. 4 years ago 71% between the age of 13 and 17 were Facebook users whereby only 51% of the same age group are users now. Today’s top sites include YouTube (85%), Instagram (72%) and Snapchat (69%).(20)
• Interestingly teens from lower income households are more probable to be a Facebook users than teens from higher income households.(20)
• Facebook is a major news source: 43% of US adults say that they get their news predominantly from Facebook.(20)
• Facebook struggles with its public perception: 54% of Facebook users say that they have adjusted their privacy setting in the past 12 months.(20)
• Facebook is the place where interest groups connect: There are more than 10 million groups on Facebook which get used by 1.4 billion people on a monthly basis.(32)
• Facebook is truly mobile-first: 96% of users are accessing the platform through a mobile device.(42)

Facebook Business statistics

As chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg is responsible for the business success of Facebook (Source: Facebook Inc. Media Kit)

• Facebook had 43,000 full-time employees as of October 30,2019.(51)
• Facebook is the 5th largest website on the planet according to the Alexa Ranking. However with more than 18 minutes daily time on site the social network in holds the top spot in user engagement.(28)
• Facebook describes their greatest business risk as “failure to retain existing users or add new users, and failure to keep users engaged with Facebok’s products”.(3)
• Facebook is not willing to pay dividends yet, as their dividend policy is “to retain any future earnings”. Hence Facebook is not expecting to pay cash dividends in the foreseeable future.(3)
• Since its inauguration Facebook has spent more than 22.4 billion USD in order to buy companies such as Instagram, Oculus and WhatsApp. In total Facebook bought 79 companies so far. (10)

• At the latest F8 Conference Facebook announced a “watch together” social feature for messenger, a design overhaul to Facebook’s desktop and mobile version and several updates to Instagram including curated product collections, donation stickers, and a revamped camera interface. Regarding WhatsApp the biggest news was a new product catalog feature which helps businesses to close sales via WhatsApp.(27)
• Facebook is dominating the app store: Facebook’s apps comprise the 4th, 5th and 6th most popular apps in the Apple app store (Messenger, Instagram, Facebook).(29)
• Facebook is the marketing tool number one for businesses: 93% of businesses are active on Facebook.(47)
• Facebook is used by 90 million small businesses. Most of them only engage in free or organic reach via Facebook pages, groups and messenger. (33)

Facebook Marketing statistics

• Facebook is currently the 5th most valuable brand globally with a brand value of 88.9 billion USD.(9)
• Social Media might be overused: 42% of Facebook users have limited their use of the platform by not checking the service for several weeks. 26% even deleted the app from their phone in the past year.(21)
• Facebook users struggle to understand the platform: 53% of users do not comprehend why certain posts are included in their news feed and others are not. Only about 14% of users think they have a large degree of control what appears in their newsfeed, whereby twice as many users (28%) feel like they have no control whatsoever.(22)
• Users are uncomfortable with Facebook’s data policy: 75% of Facebook users do not know that the platform enlists attributes, user behaviour and interests which advertisers can access in order to run ads. When presented with that truth, users feel uncomfortable about that.(20) 27% even think that the data of Facebook does not accurately represent them.(23)
• American teens have mixed feeling about the usage of social media: 45% have a neutral view on Facebook and its competitors, 31% have a positive view. Of those who have a positive view 40% say that connecting with family and friends is the greatest positive effect. 24% have a mostly negative view and of those with a negative view 27% classify bullying and rumour spreading as their main concern about social media.(25)
• An Emarketer study found that that 15% of social media users shop on Facebook or are looking for products. This is only trumped by Pinterest with 47%. The main purpose of Facebook seems to be viewing photos and sharing content with family and friends as 65% and 57% respectively said that these were the activities in which they engaged mostly.(30)

• In Q2-2019, the average price per ad decreased 4% and the number of ad impressions served across Facebook’s product rage increased by 33%.(35)
• Facebook is utterly strong in the display advertising business: Facebook comprised 40% of this advertising segment, and on mobile Facebook has even more dominance. According to Emarketer Facebook captured more than half (58%) of mobile digital display advertising revenue which makes the the company the predominant player.(37)
• Research by Hootsuite found that Facebook users click on 11 ads per month, whereby women click on 14 ads and men only click 10.(36)
• The same study revealed that the average engagement rate for Facebook posts is 3.6% across industries.(36)
• Furthermore the average organic reach for a Facebook post is only about 5.5%, meaning that businesses have to pay ads in order to reach their own audience.(36)
• This is contradicted by a study from Buffer which found that the median engagement rate across all industries on Facebook is only 0.09%. The truth lies probably somewhere in the middle and could be caused by different calculation techniques.(49)
• Facebook successfully managed shift to video: 60% of Americans who watch digital video do so on Facebook.(39)
• The engagement rate for video is higher than average, as Hootsuite found out: The average engagement rate for Facebook video posts is 6.13%.(36)
• This is also confirmed by Facebook directly, as they state that “Mobile-first creative has a 27% higher likelihood of driving brand lift and 23% higher likelihood of driving message association compared to video ads that are not optimized for mobile.”(40)
• Despite its success, Buffer found that only 4.6% of marketers use Facebook video ads.(50)
• And also by the latest research from Buffer which found that Link posts receive 76% less engagement than video posts.(48)
• A study conducted by WordStream found out that the average cost per click across industries is 1.72$. However this ranges widely from 0.45$ in the fashion industry to 3.77$ in the finance industry.(44)
• Facebook stories is a powerful Marketing tool: Facebook found that 56% of people clicked through to the website of a brand in order to get more information after seeing an ad in Facebook stories.(46)
• Facebook could potentially reach more than 1.9 billion people for advertising.(47)
• Images are still a thing: Images make up 18% of Facebook posts.(48)
• 35% of marketers report successful influencer campaigns on Facebook.(50)
• Emarketer found out that 87.1% of marketers working for a company that counts 100 or more people plan to spend parts of their budget on Facebook in 2020.(34)
• Which is not surprising as Facebook drives 80.4% of social referrals to E-Commerce sites making it the number one sales driver for many businesses in the online space.(34)

87.1% of marketers are planning to spend ad dollars on Facebook. (Source: E-Marketer)

Facebook Messenger statistics

• Facebook messenger’s missions statement is “to offer a simple yet powerful messaging application for people to connect with friends, family, groups and businesses across platforms and devices.”(3)
• Facebook Messenger is currently the 4th most popular app in the Apple appstore.(29)
• 75.1% of businesses using messenger marketing are utilising Facebook Messenger.(50)
• 37.1% of businesses want to include Facebook Messeger more into their marketing strategy.(50)

37.1% of businesses want to include Facebook Messeger more into their marketing strategy. (Source: Buffer – State of Social)

Instagram by Facebook statistics

• Instagram was founded in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.(1)
• Instagram was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for 1 billion USD.(1)
• In 2019 Facebook reports that more than 1 billion people use Instagram on a monthly basis.(1)
• Instagram’s missions statement is “to bring people closer to the people and things they love. It is a community for sharing photos, videos, and messages, and enables people to discover interests that they care about.”(3)
• Instagram is used by 37% of US adults. The platform is mainly female as 43% of US females are users compared 31% US males. (24)
• Of those who use Instagram, 42% use the app several times a day, 21% once per day and 37% are on the platform less often. (24)
• Instagram is especially popular within the hispanic community, as 51% of US adult hispanics are using the service, compared with 40% in the black community and 33% of whites.(24)
• Instagrams popularity decreases with age: Between the age of 18-24 75% use the app, 57% of those between 25-29, 47% in the age group between 30-49, 23% of people between the age of 50-64 and only 8% in the age group of 65+.(24)

• The use of Instagram increases with income: 42% of those with an income above 75,000$ are Instagram users compared with 35% of those with an income less than 30,000$.(24)
• Usage of Instagram increases with education: 43% of those with a college degree use the app, compared to 33% which only have an high school education.(24)
• Instagram is very popular amongst teens: 73% of young American adults between 13-17 years classify themselves as Instagram users.(25)
• A study by Emarketer found that users (77%) utilise Instagram mostly for viewing photos and that videos currently lack some popularity behind of static images as only 51% declared watching videos as their social media activity on Instagram.(30)
• Emarketer found out that 75.3% of marketers working for a company that counts 100 or more people plan to spend parts of their budget on Facebook in 2020.(34)
• Research from Buffer reveals that 70% of marketers find influencer campaigns on Instagram the most effective.(50)
• Instagram TV resembles a huge opportunity: 87.8% of brands are not utilising Instagram TV (IGTV) for their marketing efforts.(50)
• This is enforced by the fact that only about 28.1% of businesses are planning to make use of Instagram TV (IGTV).(50)
• 57.8% of businesses share video content on Instagram. (50)

57.8% of businesses which post video content do so on Instagram. (Source: Buffer – State of Social)

WhatsApp by Facebook statistics

• WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum.(2)
• Facebook made public that WhatsApp has 1.5 billion monthly active users (MAUs).(2)
• WhatsApp’s ‘s missions statement is “to offer a simple, reliable and secure messaging application that is used by people and businesses around the world to communicate in a private way.(3)
• WhatsApp is used by 20% of American adults whereby 21% of male Americans are using the app and 19% of females.(24)
• WhatsApp is not popular among the black community as only 4% of black American adults are using WhatsApp. Hispanics (14%) and White (12%) American adults are the bulk of US WhatsApp users.(24)

• Usage of WhatsApp increases with income: 15% of those with a yearly income above 75,000$ use the app, but only 9% of those with an income of less than 30,000$.(24)
• Usage of WhatsApp increases with education: 15% of those with a college degree use the app, compared to 6% which only have an high school education.(24)
• 14.5% of businesses use WhatsApp in their social media strategy.(50)

Facebook historic statistics

• Facebook was founded on the 4th of February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin.(5)
• Before Facebook was called Facebook it was branded as “Facemash” and then Thefacebook.(6)
• Facebook was initially only meant for Harvard students. When the founding team saw the initial success at Harvard they brought the social network to Yale, Stanford and Columbia University before they expanded even further to encompass all universities in the United States and Canada.(7)
• On the 26th of September 2006 Facebook finally made their product accessible to the wider public and everybody with a valid Email address who was older than 13 years could sign up.(7)

Facebook (fun) facts

• The net worth of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, amounts to more than 60 billion USD which lands him regularly a place in the top 10 of the Forbes billionaire index. (12)

• Facebook can be quite sexist: photos of exclusively men appear more often in Facebook news images (53%) than exclusively women (22%). In 25% of cases men and women are shown.This holds especially true for news regarding economics and sports where in 69% and 60% of cases men are respectively shown. Women are most often exclusively shown when it comes to entertainment, TV and or music. (38)
• On a given day Facebook produces 8 billion video views.(45)
• Surprisingly out of these 8 billion views, 85% are are watched without sound.(45)

Picture Source: Facebook Inc.

Why you can trust us?

Johann Dielert Web Developer & Technology Expert

Johann started to code when he was 9 years old and fell immediately in love with technology. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science, is curious about the future and gets his hands on every new gadget he can find.

Robert Johnson Economist & Digital Economy Expert

Robert holds a Masters Degree in Economics and has been working for 30 years in the technology sector. He has vast expertise in the digital economy and loves to think about markets and their dynamics.

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