33 Latest Facebook Statistics And Facts For 2023
As the largest social media network on the planet, Facebook is a platform that most of us will already be very familiar with – but how much do you really know about it?
In this post, we’re going to be sharing 33 eye-opening Facebook statistics and facts that tell us more about the predominant social media giant and the company’s it’s acquired (i.e. Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp).
By the end of this post, you’ll be armed with a ton of useful insights that can help to inform your social media strategy, drive more engagement on your Facebook posts, or make smarter investment decisions.
Ready? Let’s get started!
Editor’s top picks – Facebook statistics
These are our most interesting statistics about Facebook:
- Facebook is the world’s third most trafficked website. (Source: Similarweb)
- Facebook has raised $5 billion for various causes through fundraisers. (Source: Facebook About Page)
- The average Facebook user clicks on 12 ads every month. (Source: Hootsuite)
General Facebook statistics
First, let’s start with some general Facebook statistics that tell us more about the current state of the platform.
1. Facebook is the world’s third most trafficked website
It’s often said that Facebook is a dying platform that’s ‘on its way out’, so to speak. However, the stats show a different reality. Contrary to popular opinion, Facebook doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon and continues to command a huge share of internet traffic.
According to Similarweb, Facebook ranks third in a list of the most visited websites in the world. It’s beaten only by Google and YouTube. Rival social platform Twitter ranked in fourth place and Instagram, another social app owned by Facebook, ranked fifth on the list.
Source: Similarweb
Related: 21 Twitter Statistics & Facts to Level Up Your Social Media Strategy
2. Facebook is the only platform used by over half the world’s social network population
59% of all social media users are on Facebook, showing that Facebook continues to dominate the world of social media. This is also further evidence that Facebook continues to hold a prime spot in the cultural landscape.
Source: eMarketer
3. Facebook was the 2nd most downloaded app of 2020
Globally, Facebook has the second greatest number of downloads of any app last year. It was beaten only by TikTok, one of the ‘newer’ social platforms, which has seen meteoric growth over the last few years. Interestingly, the third most downloaded app was another Facebook subsidiary, WhatsApp.
Source: Appfigures
Related: 12 TikTok Statistics That’ll Help You Master The Social Platform
4. Over 200 million businesses use Facebook
Facebook has long been one of the most popular platforms for businesses, and this stat proves it. A fifth of a billion businesses use Facebook to connect with customers, grow their brand presence, drive traffic, and boost sales.
Source: Facebook About Page
5. Over a billion Stories are shared every day on Facebook
This includes Stories shared across all three of Facebook’s ‘Stories products on different platforms. These products include Instagram Stories, WhatsApp Status, and Facebook Stories.
If you didn’t already know, Stories are short user-generated videos or photo collections that disappear a set amount of time after being posted.
Source: Facebook About Page
Related: How To Get More Views On Instagram Stories
6. 500 million people watch videos on Facebook every day
As this stat shows, Facebook users love watching videos. It’s no wonder, then, that 75% of marketers post videos to Facebook. It’s the most popular social media platform for video marketing; more popular even than YouTube and Instagram.
Source: Facebook for Media and Biteable
7. Facebook has raised $5 billion for various causes through fundraisers
Facebook gets a lot of stick and is often seen as another greedy mega-corporation. But while I’m not suggesting those sentiments are necessarily misplaced, this statistic shows it can be a force for good too!
Source: Facebook About Page
8. Over 1.8 billion people use Facebook Groups
There are millions of Facebook Groups on the platform through which people can connect with other like-minded individuals and share their thoughts, information, and ideas. There are also 70 million group admins and moderators working hard to oversee those Facebook groups.
Source: Facebook Communities
Facebook user statistics
Next, let’s look at some Facebook statistics that tell us more about users of the platform.
9. Facebook has 1.91 billion daily active users…
This is based on the latest Facebook report and shows the number of daily active users during the second quarter of 2021. This represents a year-over-year increase of around 7%.
It’s also a staggering amount that’s difficult to wrap your head around. To put it into perspective, there are a little over 7.6 billion people on earth. This means that every single day, roughly a quarter of all humanity logs onto Facebook.
Source: Facebook Investor Reports
10. … and around 2.9 billion monthly active users
Again, this is as of the end of June 2021 and represents an increase of 7% year-over-year. This makes Facebook the most popular social media platform in the world by the number of monthly active users.
YouTube comes in second place with around 2.3 billion monthly active users, and WhatsApp (another platform owned by Facebook) comes third with around 2 billion.
Source: Facebook Investor Reports and Statista6
11. 56% of Facebook users are male
According to a recent survey, Facebook’s audience doesn’t reflect the expected 50/50 gender split. It seems that the platform is slightly more favored by men than women. This has implications for businesses and may suggest Facebook is better suited for marketers looking to target a primarily male customer base.
Source: Statista1
12. Facebook is most popular amongst 25 to 34-year-olds
31.3% of Facebook’s user base is in this age range, as of July 2021. 18 to 24-year-olds are the second largest age group on Facebook, representing 23.2% of the user base. This is followed by 35 to 44-year-olds, 45 to 54-year-olds, 55 to 64-year-olds, 13 to 17-year-olds, and those aged 65+, in that order.
Source: Statista2
13. There are more Facebook users in India than in any other country
Facebook’s audience size in India stands at 340 million, making this the country with the most Facebook users. The US comes in second place, with 200 million Facebook users. The US is followed by Indonesia and Brazil, both of which have over 100 million users.
Source: Statista3
14. 98.3% of Facebook users access the platform via mobile
As a prolific desktop user, I guess that puts me in the minority. Only 1.7% of Facebook users log in exclusively via desktop or laptop. The rest use their mobiles to access the platform. The upshot: make sure your social media content is optimized for mobile viewing and looks good on a smaller screen.
Source: DataReportal
15. Mobile Facebook users spend around 769 minutes per month on the platform
This makes Facebook the most popular mobile social media app by user engagement. TikTok came in a distant second place, with the average user spending around 498 minutes per month on the app.
However, it’s worth noting that this data is from 2019. TikTok has seen rapid growth since then, so it’s possible that it’s since closed that gap.
Source: Statista4
Facebook statistics for marketers and businesses
Next, we’ll take a look at some Facebook statistics that are relevant to marketers and businesses.
16. 93% of marketers worldwide use Facebook
According to a global survey of social media marketers, the overwhelming majority (93%) use Facebook as a marketing channel.
This makes it by far the most popular social platform for marketing. Instagram trails behind in a distant second place as it’s used by only 78% of marketers.
Source: Statista5
17. Facebook’s ads reach an audience of 2.14 billion
In other words, Facebook’s advertising audience is over a quarter of the world’s total population.
Source: Hootsuite
18. The average Facebook user clicks on 12 ads every month
Facebook’s audience seems to engage with ads well compared to many other platforms. While many people will still scroll past the bulk of ads on their news feed, the average user still clicks on at least one every few days.
Interestingly, women seem to be more receptive to ads than men, with the average female user clicking on 15 ads per month, compared to 10 for the average male user.
Source: Hootsuite
19. 78% of US consumers use Facebook for product discovery
As this statistic shows, Facebook isn’t just a place to look at memes in your feed or catch up with family and friends. The majority of people in the US have used Facebook to actively seek out products to buy. This makes Facebook a leading product discovery platform that many people use to find information to guide their purchasing decisions.
Source: Kleiner Perkins
20. 36% of people use Facebook as a news source
For marketers, the upshot of this is that Facebook may be a great place to share company news. For example, you might want to announce product launches or share press releases on Facebook.
Source: Pew Research Center
21. 48.5% of decision-makers use Facebook for B2B research
Only YouTube is more popular for B2B research (50.9%). If you’re in charge of social media marketing for a B2B company, Facebook can be a great way to get your message out to your target audience.
Source: Hootsuite
22. The best time to post on Facebook is 9 AM
This is when people are just sitting down at their desks to start work and going online, so it’s when clickthrough rates are at their highest. Other popular times are 11 AM to 12 PM (lunch breaks) and 3 to 4 PM. Thursday to Sunday are the best days to post to Facebook.
Source: HubSpot1
23. The average Facebook post has a 0.18% engagement rate
This is a useful benchmark for marketers to measure their own performance against. If you’re generating a greater engagement rate than 0.18%, you’re doing well.
Source: Hootsuite
24. The average video on Facebook has a 0.26% engagement rate.
That’s significantly better than the average post engagement rate and suggests Facebook users are more likely to click, like, comment, and share videos than other types of posts.
Source: Hootsuite
Facebook statistics for investors
Moving onto Facebook investor statistics. These stats are based on the latest (at the time of writing) Facebook investor report and tell us more about the company’s revenue and expenses.
25. Facebook generated over $29 billion in revenue in the second quarter of 2021…
That’s right, 29 billion dollars in just 3 months. Assuming Facebook was to generate similar revenue figures each quarter, that would be a total yearly revenue of $116 billion.
However, this may be slightly optimistic as Facebook has already predicted that year-over-year revenue growth will decelerate in the second half of the year compared to this quarter.
Source: Facebook Investor Reports
26. …and over 28.5B of this came from advertising revenue
The vast majority of Facebook’s revenue is driven by advertiser dollars. A measly $500 million came from other sources. The growth of advertising revenue in this quarter reflected a whopping 47% year-over-year increase in the average price of ads as well as a more modest 6% increase in the number of ad sales.
Source: Facebook Investor Reports
27. Facebook will spend $70-73B on expenses in 2021
Year-over-year growth in total costs and expenses was around 31% based on data provided in the latest financial report. This growth in expenses has been driven largely by Facebook’s continued investments in talent, infrastructure, and consumer hardware costs.
Source: Facebook Investor Reports
Facebook Messenger statistics
Messenger is an instant messaging app owned by Facebook. It’s built into the Facebook platform and launched way back in 2011. It’s now one of the most popular instant messaging services on the market.
Here are some Facebook Messenger statistics that tell us more about it.
28. Around 1.3 billion people use Facebook Messenger
That means that it’s not quite as popular as the rival messenger app WhatsApp, which boasts 2 billion monthly active users. However, WhatsApp is also owned by Facebook Inc, which means the parent company still dominates the instant messaging world.
Source: Hootsuite
29. Over 100 billion messages are shared every single day
This is according to Facebook’s About Page, but it isn’t clear whether or not they’re talking about messages sent through Messenger alone. It seems more likely that this is the combined total of messages sent through Messenger, WhatsApp (which is owned by Facebook), and perhaps other Facebook subsidiaries like Instagram.
Either way, 100 billion messages is an incredible figure. That’s roughly around 13 messages for every person on earth, every single day.
It’s also more than 5x the number of SMS messages sent globally per day and shows that instant messaging services are rapidly stealing market share from traditional SMS service providers.
Source: Facebook About Page
Related Reading: 30 Latest SMS Marketing Statistics, Facts, And Trends.
30. Messenger facilitates 150 million video calls every day
This shows that Facebook Messenger isn’t just for text messages. As this stat shows, it’s also a super popular video calling platform.
Source: Facebook Messenger News
31. There are over 300,000 active chatbots on Messenger
Chatbots are AI-powered conversational messaging applications that simulate conversation with real humans using natural language. In other words, they’re robots that act as 24/7 customer service agents and talk to your customers.
The great thing about chatbots is that they allow you to interact with more customers and respond to more queries at scale without hiring more customer support staff. Chatbots can use automated scripts to provide answers to common questions, and field only the more complicated queries to your customer service agents.
Businesses have been quick to adopt chatbot technology, especially on Messenger, where over 300,000 chatbots are in use.
Source: Forbes
32. Messenger has an open rate of 80%…
This is based on a very small, specific study by Hubspot, so it doesn’t necessarily reflect the average open rate across the board. However, it’s the best data we have to go off.
In the Hubspot study, they sent promotional offers to their audience via both messenger and email. The Messenger broadcasts were opened 80% of the time, whereas the email messages were only opened 33% of the time. In other words, messengers had a 242% greater open rate.
Source: Hubspot2
If you want to learn more, be sure to check out our dedicated article on Facebook Messenger statistics.
33. …and a clickthrough rate of 13%
Again, this is from the same small Hubspot study. Messenger broadcasts were opened 13% of the time whereas emails were only opened 2.1% of the time. This means Messenger generated over 6x the clickthrough rate. If you want to maximize your clickthrough rate, consider prioritizing Messenger as a communication tool
Source: Hubspot2
Facebook statistics sources
Final thoughts
There you have it – 33 of the latest Facebook statistics and facts to inform your social strategy this year. We hope you find them useful!
Interested in seeing how Facebook compares to other popular social platforms? If so, be sure to check out our roundup of the 28 latest social media statistics.
Want more stats? Check out these articles: