Instagram has consistently been a pioneer. Now, just prior to its 15th anniversary, we have a fresh metric of its worldwide prominence — exceeding the aspirations of typical teens.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed on Wednesday that the previously modest photo-sharing platform, which he astutely purchased for $1 billion in 2012, now has over 3 billion active users. This is a remarkable milestone, particularly when considering that Instagram had around 30 million monthly active users at the time of acquisition.
Three billion users account for nearly 37 percent of the global population. If Instagram were classified as a nation, it would surpass India (which holds the largest Instagram audience), China, the U.S., and the E.U. combined. The Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the American whatever-this-is could only fantasize about such dominance.
No empire, whether real or digital (and nowadays, who can distinguish?), has ever been constructed this rapidly. Even Facebook, Instagram’s older sibling, only achieved 3 billion users in January at the age of 21. Launched on Oct. 6, 2010, Instagram is the undeniable prodigy of the social media clan. (WhatsApp is Meta’s middle child; the company asserts it also boasts 3 billion users, but opinions differ on its classification as social media.)
Given these growth statistics, there’s ample reason to believe Instagram will soon eclipse its older sibling and become synonymous with social media throughout the 2020s (and perhaps even into the 2030s), just as Facebook was in the 2010s. (TikTok is in hot pursuit of Instagram, but currently lags behind with an estimated 1.6 billion active users.)
Just as it is said that Alexander the Great wept upon discovering there was no more of the then-known world to conquer, Zuckerberg may lament that there are fewer than 5 billion smartphone users capable of downloading his app. (It remains prohibited in China, which Alexander also couldn’t access.)
Who qualifies as an Instagram ‘user’?
But how exactly does Zuckerberg’s Meta define Instagram’s “active users”? And does it hold as much significance as the excitement implies?
This is a crucial question because Zuckerberg has been altering his metrics recently. In July, the company reported that 3.48 billion individuals used the Meta “family of apps” daily. The last time Zuckerberg disclosed Instagram’s user count, during a quarterly call in 2022, he indicated it was 2 billion monthly active users, which is the more prevalent measurement. (MAUs are the figures we’ve utilized for TikTok and WhatsApp thus far.)
And Monthly Active Users (MAUs) is what Zuckerberg referred to this week, according to his Threads message. He even added a Breaking Bad GIF — “billions, with a b” — for extra emphasis.
So why shift between monthly and daily metrics? Is counting users as straightforward as receiving notifications from servers upon login, or is there some complicated math at play? Are we referencing all devices and web browsers, or just smartphones? Mashable contacted Meta for clarification regarding the MAU-counting methodology, but the company has yet to respond.
Nonetheless, there is evidence indicating that a Monthly Active User may not signify what it once did — and that measuring the time spent on the app could be a more pertinent metric.
Take my example. Technically, I am a Monthly Active User of Instagram. I’m a part of this 3 billion-strong empire! But in practice, I check someone’s profile via their handle once or twice a month. I shared two images in 2024 and 15 in 2023, continuing a downward trend since 2020. According to my iPhone’s Screen Time, my Instagram usage averages 18 seconds daily.
Why? My feed feels excessively cluttered with advertisements and algorithm-driven suggestions.