WhatsApp is that the World’s Favorite Social Platform (And different Facts)
The update Digital 2021 report reveals the most recent knowledge on the state of the web, social media, and more.
The adoption and use of connected school continue to surge round the globe
The new Digital 2021 April world Statshot Report and that we are at a unit Social—reveals that over six in ten folks on Earth currently use the web.
Internet users have adult by over 330 million over the past year, reaching a complete of over 4.7 billion at the beginning of April 2021.
That’s not the sole huge story during this quarter’s report, though; we tend to additionally cover:
This is another important step in social media growth.
Fascinating insights into the world’s “favorite” social media platforms
Updated stats for worldwide TikTok use
A closer inspect social media's motivations
Fresh updates on the world’s evolving search behaviors
The digital world as of April 2021.
Let’s begin with a glance at the most recent world digital headlines:
The world’s population stood at 7.85 billion at the beginning of April 2021, that is roughly I Chronicles above the figure for identical time last year.
There is a unit 5.27 billion distinctive mobile users round the world, which implies that quite simple fraction of all the individuals on Earth currently have a portable.
Internet users have adult by 7.6% over the past year to achieve 4.72 billion, that equates a quiet hour of the world’s total population.
More than half a billion new users joined social media platforms over the past twelve months, taking the worldwide total to 4.33 billion by April 2021.
2. web adoption passes hour of the world’s population
Analysis reveals that quite six in ten individuals round the world area unit currently on-line, with over 4.72 billion individuals victimization the net on April 2021.
The latest reports indicate that web users have adult by 332 million over the past twelve months, leveling to a year-on-year increase of 7.6%.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to limit analysis into net use round the world, that the actual total could be above these figures recommend.
Indeed, as we’ll explore in additional detail within the next section, social media user numbers have adult significantly additional quickly than net users have an equivalent amount.
This is partially thanks to the very fact that it’s comparatively easy for social media corporations to report corrections, up-to-date user numbers, as a result of them will merely collect this knowledge directly from the activity on their own platforms.
Conversely, analysis into net adoption still needs face-to-face interviews, as a result of even a phone-based interview would skew findings in favor of these folks that have already got the technology needed to access the web.
It’s additionally price,noting that social media continues to be a key driver for broader net adoption, and also the latest analysis from GWI indicates that nearly ninety nine of world net users aged sixteen to sixty four use a social network or internet-powered electronic communication platform monthly.
So, given the ascension in international social media users, it’s quite potent that net users have additionally been growing additional more quickly than the most recent reports into net use recommend.
We’ve still seen robust growth in net use over the past year tho', with the most recent knowledge suggesting a median increase of over 900,000 users per day, or 10.5 new users each second.
However, levels of net adoption still vary meaningfully round the world.
More than 9 in ten individuals across Northern and Western Europe and North America use the web these days, Wever, over 3 in four individuals across Japanese Africa stays unconnected.
Internet adoption additionally remains comparatively low across Southern Asia, that is home to the world’s largest unconnected population.
More than one billion folks stay unconnected across simply 3 countries within the region—India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan—and our analysis reveals that girls form up the bulk of those unconnected populations.
But despite these comparatively low levels of adoption, Southern Asia continues to be home to quite doubly as several web users as Northern America.
For context, just 6.3% of the world’s web users board the U.S., compared with quite thirteen in India, and twenty first in China.
So, so as to know what the broader world is absolutely doing on-line, it’s essential to seem on the far side the behaviors of web users in developed economies.
And in reality, as we’ll see numerous instances throughout this quarter’s analysis, it’s the users within the world’s less developed economies that are driving several of today’s most enjoyable web trends.
3. Social media adoption accelerates once more
One of the largest surprises during this quarter’s information is that social media adoption continues to accelerate, despite the fast pace of growth, we’ve been covered since the irruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Analysis suggests that there are over 0.5 a billion additional social media users within the world these days than there have been this point last year, representing a year-on-year growth of on the brink of 14 July.
To put those figures in context, the amount of social media users has inflated by a median of quite one.4 million every day over the past twelve months—that’s adequate to 16.5 new users each single second.
This ascent has propelled the worldwide total to 4.33 billion, that equates to quite 55%of the world’s total population.
That total is additionally three-dimensional above the figure we tend to accord simply 3 months again, that means that social media user numbers grew double as quick within the half-moon of 2021 than they did over the previous 3 months.
China additional eighty five million new social media users over the past twelve months, leveling to roughly one in six of the world’s new users throughout that amount, whereas Asian country, Indonesia, and Brazil additionally additional vital numbers of recent users to their native totals.
4. WhatsApp is that the world’s favorite social platform
GWI recently added a series of recent social media inquiries to its survey, and one in all these queries, asks respondents to spot their favorite social platform.
Before we have a tendency to examine this knowledge intimately, it’s vital to spotlight that we’ve removed China from the data as et that informs the “favorite social media platform” charts in our reports.This can be the consequence of.
Users in China are presently unable to access a similar social media platform because the remainder of the globe, therefore,as well as knowledge of China might skew the world results.
Similarly, note that YouTube isn't presently enclosed within the list of social media platforms that respondents to GWI’s survey will choose between, therefore it won’t seem in any of those rankings. GWI classifies YouTube as a video platform, instead of as a social media platform.
It’s conjointly vital to fret that answers to the current question are going to be extremely subjective, and totally different|completely different} survey respondents might use different criteria to see their favorite platform.
But that doesn’t trim in any method from the worth of this knowledge.
Around the world (excluding China), virtually 1 / 4 (24.1%) of web users aged sixteen to sixty four say that WhatsApp is their favorite social media platform.
Facebook comes in second within the current ranking, with virtually twenty second of respondents selecting this selection, whereas Instagram ranks third, with 18.4%.
Overall, Facebook’s four main platforms account for the quite simple fraction (67.9%) of worldwide favorites outside of China.
Perhaps astonishingly, Twitter ranks fourth at a worldwide level, though less than five-hitter of respondents selected this selection.
The fact that Twitter ranks beyond TikTok might raise a number of eyebrows, however, it’s necessary to recollect that GWI’s survey solely covers users between the ages of sixteen and sixty four.
Indeed, GWI’s information clearly shows that preferences vary meaningfully by age and gender, even at intervals that sixteen to sixty four age bracket.
However, despite these variations, one among Facebook’s platforms continues to be the highest alternative across all demographic teams.
As we’ll explore in additional detail later during this analysis, these findings reinforce the hypothesis that user numbers aren’t perpetually the simplest live of social media chance.
But so as to create a higher sense of those rankings, let’s take a better look into the explanations why folks use social media.
5. ‘Socializing’ still crack social motivations, however, behaviors are a unit evolving
Overall, “staying up-to-date with friends and family” is that the high motivation for social media use at a world level, with roughly half all respondents spoken language that this can be one amongst the first reasons why they visit social platforms. (Note that respondents will select quite one possibility.)
However, it’s attention-grabbing to notice the news and diversion are necessary drivers for social media use, with quite one in 3 users round the world spoken language that these are a unit amongst their high motivations.
More than web users aged sixteen to sixty four conjointly say that they intercommunicate social media to seek out inspiration for things to try and do or get, while 26.5% say that they visit social platforms specifically to seek out product to buy.
Marketers may additionally be stunned to be told that individual area unit additional possible to cite “seeing content from [their] favorite brands” as a high motivation for exploitation,social media than They should quote “the following celebrities/influencers” (23.4% vs. 20.9%) – we’ll explore this in additional detail in a very moment.
Looking at the far side people’s primary motivations ,although, it’s more and more clear that social media could be a high destination for diversion.
More than four in five web users aged sixteen to sixty four say that they visit social platforms to seek out funny or fun content, and additional individuals visit social networks like Facebook and TikTok to seek out diversion than they are doing to message friends and family. (However, note that this specific data point doesn’t embody courier platforms like WhatsApp or wire.)
Overall, individuals say that they currently actively use or visit a mean of quite six social media platforms every month.
But that platform attracts the most important audiences?
6. The world’s most active social platforms
WhatsApp is also the world’s favorite social media platform, however Facebook still claims the world’s largest active user base.
The latest information show that Facebook currently attracts nearly two.8 billion monthly active users, that is fifty seven million over it attracted simply 3 months past.
The accessible information indicate that YouTube has the second largest active user base within the world, with Google’s coming up with tools news that advertisers will currently reach nearly two.3 billion users on the platform monthly.
However, these figures solely represent logged-in users during a choice of states, and analysis suggests that total monthly guests across YouTube’s mobile app and web site (including non logged-in users) can probably be a lot of higher.
Official information place WhatsApp in third place in our latest ranking, with the company’s most up-to-date statement on user numbers (from Feb 2020) revealing that the courier platform attracts a minimum of 2 billion monthly active users.
Once again although, analysis suggests that the amount of monthly active WhatsApp accounts is also a lot of beyond this, with our calculations golf shot that figure somewhere round the two.6 billion mark.
However, as a result of WhatsApp accounts square measure tied to a sign instead of user profiles, there’s an honest likelihood that this figure includes variety of ‘secondary’ accounts operated by a similar individual, particularly once it involves business accounts
For context, many folks round the world use over one mobile device (e.g. one for private use and one for work purposes), and information from GSMA Intelligence suggests that the standard world mobile user currently operates a median of one.5 mobile connections.
Over recent days, variety of media shops have documented a ‘leaked’ Bytedance document that reveals that TikTok users have currently grownup to 732 million, indicating that the platform has accessorial a minimum of forty million new users since August 2020.
However, this figure doesn't embrace users of Douyin ( Bytedance’s version of TikTok for the ground Chinese market), that some folks would possibly argue is technically a similar platform.
Bytedance solely publishes daily active user figures for Douyin, with the newest statements revealing that 600 million folks in China use the platform day after day.
This suggests that TikTok and Douyin currently have a bigger combined audience than either Instagram or WeChat.
Looking additional generally, a minimum of seventeen social media platforms currently have a minimum of three hundred million monthly active users.
However, with LinkedIn not business monthly active user information since it absolutely was noninheritable by Microsoft back in 2016, it’s unclear whether or not the platform would qualify for this list (for reference, the figure that we have a tendency to report for LinkedIn’s advertising audience relies on total registered members, not monthly active users).
These monthly active user figures square measure a crucial gauge of a platform’s potential, however monthly active user numbers may become a distraction for marketers.
For example, as I noted on top of, the standard social media user says that they actively use over six social media platforms monthly, and lots of of those platforms can see vital audience overlaps.
But simply however huge square measure those overlaps?
The simple answer: huge.
7. Social media audience overlaps
When it involves users aged sixteen to sixty four outside of China, GWI’s information reveals that hardly I Chronicles of social media users square measure distinctive to anybody platform.
Moreover, for several platforms, that figure is way, much lower.
GWI’s information indicates that YouTube has the biggest ‘unique’ audience, however even then, simply I Chronicles of YouTube users aged sixteen to sixty four say that they don’t visit the other social platform.
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That figure drops to zero.7% for Facebook and zero.2% for LinkedIn, except for several of the smaller platforms, the numbers square measure even lower still.
Just one in each 1,000 users of Instagram and TikTok between the ages of sixteen and sixty four say that they don’t use the other social platforms, whereas the newest information recommend that each one Snapchat users during this demographic are active users of a minimum of one different social platform.
Meanwhile, the information for individual platform overlaps additionally wreak fascinating reading.
For example, roughly eighty six of TikTok users between the ages of sixteen and sixty four say that they additionally use Facebook, whereas fifty fifth of Instagram users within the same age bracket say that they additionally use Twitter.
But—aside from providing fascinating trivia—what will this information truly tell us?
For marketers, the straightforward answer is that usage context and motivations seemingly matter way more than user numbers alone.
Yes, reach is very important, however with the majority employing a large choice of social platforms every month, it’s vital to recollect that marketers have varied choices for achieving that reach.
And with most brands relying heavily on paid media to attain significant reach in social media, these findings highlight the potential advantages of adopting a a lot of varied social platform combine.
Critically, brands don’t ought to maintain an everyday organic presence on social channels so as to require advantage of their paid media placements.
So, my recommendation would be to explore the varied ad formats offered by every platform—together with their associated price per thousand (CPM) and price per action (CPA) values—in order to spot the foremost economical and effective ways in which to deliver your message to your audience.
But it’s value stressing that brands’ social media chance isn’t restricted to advertising.
The world’s net users are progressively turning to social media to analysis product and services that they’re thinking of shopping for.
8. Evolving search behaviour
We’ve been pursuit the world’s evolving search behaviour for a number of quarters currently, and also the latest knowledge show that ever additional folks are going on the far side standard search engines to seek out data regarding brands.
GWI’s knowledge suggests that quite seven in ten net users currently use or visit some style of social platform or tool once trying to find data regarding the items they’re fascinated by shopping for, with nearly forty fifth location that they visit social networks like Facebook for this specific purpose.
The figure for complete analysis on social networks is even higher amongst younger age teams , with nearly fifty four of girls aged sixteen to twenty four location that they visit social networks once trying to find data regarding merchandise and services.
This drops to merely below half-hour for users over the age of fifty five, however that also represents an oversized and compelling chance for marketers.
Looking on the far side social media, the employment of voice interfaces continues to grow, with GWI’s latest knowledge showing important will increase, even since our Jan report.
Globally, nearly forty seventh of net users aged sixteen to sixty four say that they used voice commands or voice search on any device within the past month, however that figure rises to nearly hour in Bharat.
Similar to the pattern we have a tendency to saw for search on social networks, it’s younger net users World Health Organization are driving this trend, with run over five hundredth of net users below the age thirty five locution that they’ve used voice interfaces within the past thirty days.
It’s conjointly price reiterating that the bulk of voice searches manifest itself on smartphones, thus don’t limit your voice-related activities to good speaker devices like Amazon’s Alexa.
Meanwhile, quite a 3rd of net users conjointly say that they’ve used image recognition tools like Pinterest Lens on their phone within the past month.
The use of those tools is significantly higher across geographic area and geographic area ', with roughly six in ten respondents in Mexico and Brazil locution they’ve used one within the past month.
Once again, use of search ‘lenses’ varies meaningfully by age: users aged sixteen to twenty four are nearly double as probably to be regular users of image recognition tools as users aged fifty five to sixty four ar.
But the additional vital story lies in geographic trends.
Across all 3 of those new search behaviors—use of social search, voice interfaces, and image recognition tools—it’s users in developing economies that are the fastest to embrace new technologies and approaches.
Critically, net users in these regions already come users in additional developed economies by an element of 2 to at least one.
As a result, there’s a decent likelihood that the relentless go after ‘economies of scale’ can end in platforms pushing these tools additional actively to users in Western markets over the approaching months.
9. The role of influencers
Another of the attention-grabbing new charts during this quarter’s report explores the categories of accounts that individuals follow on social media.
Friends and family start off prime, but, maybe astonishingly, fewer than 1/2 all respondents selected this selection.
Entertainment-related accounts occupy succeeding few places within the ranking, with quite 1 / 4 of respondents speech communication they follow actors, TV shows, culture accounts, and musicians.
B2B marketers could also be interested to be told that roughly twenty percent of all web users aged sixteen to sixty four say that they follow corporations that area unit relevant to their work.
It’s unlikely that each one of those individuals can add procurance or partner relations roles, this B2B marketers might want to suppose additional loosely concerning a way to faucet into the potential of those broader audiences.
For example, however would possibly you harness workers outside of your core target market to influence the opinions and attitudes of their colleagues United Nations agency add purchase-related functions?
Meanwhile, all marketers could also be interested to be told that individuals area unit additional doubtless to follow corporations and makes that they’re thinking of buying from than they're to follow influencers and different specialists.
The gap between these 2 classes is avowedly terribly tiny (21.6% versus twenty one.3%), however this finding ought to still be a very important thought once it involves building Associate in Nursing overall social media arrange.
In explicit, individuals seem to be even as keen to listen to directly from brands as they're to listen to from important third parties.
However, the amount of individuals following influencers varies significantly by geographics.
For example, quite 1/2 all web users within the Philippines say that they follow influencers, however that figure drops to but 7%in Russia.
Similarly, and as is thus typically the case once it involves digital behaviors, the role of influencers conjointly varies meaningfully by demographic.
Overall, girls area unit additional doubtless to follow influencers than men area unit, though it’s attention-grabbing to notice that this finding is reversed amongst Baby Boomers.
Younger individuals are additional doubtless to follow influencers than their parents’ generation, with girls aged sixteen to twenty four quite 3x as doubtless to follow influencers as girls aged fifty five to sixty four area unit.
And whereas we’re on the topic of influencers, it’s value taking a fast consider vlogs (i.e. blogs delivered during a video format) too.
Around the world, quite (51.7%) of web users aged sixteen to sixty four say that they watched a vlog within the past month, however there area unit important disparities between countries.
Nearly 9 in ten web users within the Philippines area unit regular vlog viewers, however in Japan, that figure drops to fewer than one in ten.
These figures are rising steady over recent months, and therefore the information clearly shows that vlogs area unit Associate in Nursing progressively common type of diversion.
Vlogs are a very important thought for marketers, with roughly one in seve web users speech communication that they actively communicate vlogs once researching merchandise and services that they’re fascinated by shopping for.
10. Don't let new brilliant toys distract you.
Marketers like to experiment with the newest digital innovations, however it’s vital to recollect that several of our existing tools still supply powerful opportunities.
For example, media reports of email’s ending have mostly exaggerated its fate.
The latest knowledge show that roughly four in 5 web users still use a webmail service (e.g. Gmail) each month, with solely China and Japan seeing usage rates below seventy fifth
Even additional tellingly, usage remains comparatively consistent across completely different demographic teams, with over three-quarters of worldwide web users across all ages and genders spoken communication that they’ve used a webmail service within the past thirty days.
In a similar vein, Yahoo! continues to rank amongst the world’s twenty most visited websites, despite having been around since the last century (gasp!).
Indeed, the newest knowledge from shows that Yahoo! attracted over half a billion distinctive users to its web site in March 2021, suggesting that Yahoo! still includes a larger active user base than Snapchat.
Even Hotmail continuing to rank within the world’s prime twenty Google searches throughout the primary 3 months of this year, despite Microsoft migrating the service to Outlook.com back in 2018.
The key takeaway here is that several of our audiences still use previous favorites, whilst new services vie for his or her attention and heart.
Remember: it’s referred to as a selling combine for a reason.
Most digital opportunities are Associate in Nursing addition instead of a replacement, therefore don’t abandon platforms and activities that are operating for your whole, just because a brand new child arrives on the block.
Digging deeper
There area unit hundreds a lot of nice insights packed into the two hundred slides of this quarter’s Statshot, thus take care to dig in to find out a lot of.
Stories to appear out for include:
Impressive growth within the advertising audiences of assorted social media platforms, with Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter all seeing sizeable quarter-on-quarter increases;
Data exploring the recognition of podcasts round the world, with the shocking finding that podcasts see higher adoption in developing markets like land and Asian nation than they are doing within the U.S. and Europe;
Some intriguing trends in mobile app transfer information from App Annie that highlights the billowing quality of messengers like wire and Signal;
Great insights into the newest ecommerce and on-line payment trends from Contentsquare and Worldpay; and
The latest trends in world digital ad pay from Kenshoo, together with a giant year-on-year jump in paid search pay.
That’s all for this quarter though; I’ll be back with all the freshest insights from consecutive 3 months in our Gregorian calendar month report.
Until then, if you wish any further stats, cross-check our full Digital 2021 Apr Update.
Discover the newest information and insights on social media, internet, mobile, and different digital behaviors within the Digital 2021 Report.
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