Digital 2025 April Global Statshot Report
It’s only been a few weeks since we published our flagship Digital 2025 Global Overview Report, but we’re already back with a bumper update to our Global Digital Reports series.
The new Digital 2025 April Global Statshot Report – published in partnership between Meltwater and We Are Social – contains a wealth of new data, including rich new detail on the time that people spend with connected media, a new report section profiling the world’s digital news habits, and thousands of other data points exploring global internet use, social media activity, online shopping, and engagement with digital marketing.
Top stories in this quarter’s global update include:
The changing face of online information
A fresh surge in internet user numbers
The newest billion-user platform
Concerning trends for one of the world’s most popular websites
Staggering trends in mobile data consumption
The deepening rivalry between Instagram and TikTok
Trends in online video consumption
A detailed look at YouTube
Video games are bigger than ever
The return of cryptocurrencies
There’s plenty of nuance behind these headlines though, so be sure to read on below to get the full story.
The ultimate collection of digital data
As always, we’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to our generous data partners, who provide the best-in-class data you’ll find in this report:
Authenticity statement
All of the analysis that you’re about to read has been written by Simon Kemp, without the use of generative AI [click here to learn why this matters].
Simon has been researching and producing the Global Digital Reports series for 15 years, so he’s intimately familiar with the “state of digital”, and how the world’s connected behaviours are evolving.
If you’d like to stay up to date with Simon’s regular analyses, he’d be delighted if you connect with him on LinkedIn.
⚠️ Important notes
As you explore this latest report – and especially as you compare trends over time – please be aware of the following data notes:
Starting with the current Q4 2024 wave of research, GWI has made significant changes to the ways in which it surveys and calculates time spent with media. These changes have had a significant impact on the values that the company reports for these data points compared with the values that it reported in previous waves of its ongoing research. As a result, values for time spent with media featured in this report are not comparable with values for equivalent data points featured in previous editions of these Global Digital Reports. We urge readers to pay particular attention to the advisory alerts and footnotes on each page of this report to understand where changes have affected reported values, and to understand whether there have been changes in what the reported metrics represent, or in the behaviours and preferences that they measure.
The mobile app insights in this latest edition of our Global Digital Reports series rely on Similarweb’s extensive new App Intelligence product. This new dataset tracks people’s real-world use of millions of apps across the Google Play Store and Apple iOS App Store, offering us valuable insights into how people all over the world are using mobile services such as social media platforms, mobile games, shopping and entertainment apps, AI tools, and much more. This dataset is not directly comparable with the source(s) that we used in previous reports though, so we urge readers to pay close attention to headline alerts and notes on data comparability in slide footnotes throughout this report.
The complete report
You’ll find our complete Digital 2025 April Global Statshot Report in the embed below (click here if that’s not working for you), but read on past that to explore my in-depth analysis of what all these numbers actually mean for you and your work.
The global state of digital in April 2025
Let’s start with a look at the latest headlines for digital adoption and use around the world:
Data from the United Nations shows that the global population reached 8.21 billion by the start of April 2025, with that figure increasing by 70 million people (+0.9 percent) compared with the equivalent figure for the same time last year. The world’s population is also increasingly “concentrated”, with 58.2 percent of all people on Earth now living in urban centres.
The latest figures from GSMA Intelligence put the number of unique mobile users at 5.81 billion, which equates to 70.7 percent of the world’s total population. Unique mobile subscribers have increased by 116 million over the past year, delivering annual growth of 2.0 percent. Meanwhile, data from Ericsson shows that smartphones now account for roughly 87 percent of the mobile handsets in use around the world.
At the start of April 2025, the number of people using the internet had reached 5.64 billion, resulting in a penetration figure of 68.7 percent. Internet user numbers have increased by 144 million (+2.6 percent) over the past twelve months, but 2.57 billion people remain offline at the time of writing.
Analysis by Kepios reveals that global social media user identities now stand at 5.31 billion, which equates to 64.7 percent of the world’s total population. The total user figure has increased by 4.7 percent over the past 12 months, with 241 million new identities starting to use social platforms since April 2024 [although note that “user identities” may not represent unique individuals].
These headline figures offer a valuable overview of the global “state of digital” in April 2025, but in order to understand what people are actually doing online – and how people’s behaviours are evolving – we need to go deeper into the numbers.
So, grab yourself a drink and a snack, get comfortable, and we’ll begin our journey through this quarter’s essential findings.
The changing nature of information
At a worldwide level, “finding information” remains the primary reason why people use the internet, but it’s important to stress that connected tech’s role in helping us find information extends well beyond that single data point.
Indeed, our assessment indicates that roughly half of the motivations in GWI’s latest ranking of reasons for using the internet are related to finding information of some sort, whether that’s staying up to date with news and current affairs, researching potential purchases, or looking for educational resources.
Interestingly, younger audiences now say that staying in touch with friends and family is the primary reason why they go online, but even then, the quest for information is still clearly evident amongst the primary reasons why Gen Z uses the internet.
And moreover, information seems to become increasingly important as we get older, with 4 in 5 internet users aged 65 and above (79.8 percent) citing this as a primary reason for going online
Information takes many forms of course, and internet users turn to a wide variety of online resources to help them find what they’re looking for.
At the highest level, 81.5 percent of online adults say that they use search engines each month, and – despite a slight drop over the past few months – this latest figure is actually higher than the equivalent value from this time two years ago.
Search engines remain popular across most geographies too, with more than 8 in 10 internet users accessing these services at least once a month in all but four of the world’s largest economies.
There are some notable exceptions here though, with reported monthly search engine usage falling below 80 percent in China (64.9 percent), Egypt (71.1 percent), Russia (72.1 percent), and Japan (74.9 percent).
However, data shows that search engines have enduring appeal across demographics, with GWI’s data highlighting a remarkable level of consistency in search engine use across ages and genders.
But despite saying that they prioritise social connection over finding information when it comes to their internet motivations, it’s interesting to note that younger audiences are actually amongst the heaviest users of search engines.
Where the world finds information
Given the popularity of search engines, it’s perhaps not surprising to learn that Google remains the world’s primary source of information today.
For example, GWI reports that 81.6 percent of online adults outside of China use Google each month, while Similarweb data suggests that Google.com attracts more than 3 billion unique visitors each month.
However, Google is something of an anomaly, because – at least until recently – Google was merely a “gateway” to other sources of information, providing links to third-party sites and content.
The relative importance of other top sites like YouTube, Facebook, and X in providing information has been growing over the past decade, especially when it comes to finding news content and researching potential purchases.
However, across the world’s most popular web domains, the site that people might most associate with “information” is Wikipedia.
The self-proclaimed “free encyclopedia” has long been a cornerstone of the internet, providing valuable reference for hundreds of millions people around the world each month.
Despite its popularity – or perhaps because of it – the site’s “open source” approach isn’t without its detractors, as (somewhat ironically) this page on Wikipedia explains.
However, the very same issues that some observers cite as “weaknesses” could also be seen as strengths, depending on a reader’s willingness to go “behind the scenes” and explore the edits that have been made to each page over time [if you’ve never done this, I strongly encourage you to start; you can learn how here].
Because of the sheer diversity of content that Wikipedia covers – and the frequency with which the site’s contributors update its content – the site regularly ranks in the world’s top ten domains by total traffic and by unique visitor numbers.
For example, we’ve already seen that Wikipedia places seventh in our ranking of websites using Similarweb data, and our April 2025 report also shows that the site places fifth in our Semrush global ranking.
What the Wiki?
However, despite the service’s apparent popularity, data suggests that Wikipedia has been losing a significant volume of web traffic over recent months.
Indeed, detailed analysis by the Kepios team that produces the Global Digital Reports reveals that Wikipedia has lost more than 1 billion monthly visits over the past 3 years, which equates to roughly a quarter of the site’s total monthly traffic.
These trends will obviously be of concern to the Wikimedia Foundation that provides the underlying infrastructure for Wikipedia, not least because the site continues to rely on reader donations to survive.
However, a decline in Wikipedia’s traffic has important implications for the rest of us too: businesses, students, journalists, NGOs, governments, and even society as a whole.
And in particular, the causes of Wikipedia’s declining traffic have repercussions for the digital industry as a whole.
But as you might expect, there’s a lot more to this story than meets the eye: the rise of AI, an evolving competitive landscape, changes to Big Tech algorithms, and much more besides.
Because there’s so much to cover, we’ve published a separate, standalone article on DataReportal that explores a variety of related trends in data-rich detail.
And critically, this analysis makes for essential reading for anyone involved in digital [hint: if you’re reading this, that means you].
That’s not our only story this quarter though, so open up the link below in a separate tab, and then read on below for our analysis of all the other key findings in our April report.
Read our complete Wikipedia trends analysis by clicking here.
Internet users continue to climb
We’ve seen meaningful updates to internet user numbers for some of the world’s largest countries over recent weeks, including new adoption figures for China, India, and Indonesia.
First up, new figures from CNNIC show that China’s connected population continues to grow.
The organisation’s most recent report puts internet penetration in the world’s second most populous nation at 78.6 percent in December 2024, which is more than a percentage point higher than the 77.5 percent that CNNIC reported for December 2023.
Based on the latest population data from the United Nations, these figures (re)confirm that China has the world’s largest connected population, with more than 1.1 billion people in the country using the internet today.
And for essential perspective, that figure is still more than a quarter of a billion higher than the latest internet user total for India.
Having said that, internet adoption has been growing more quickly in India than it has been in China over recent months, and the latest data from Kantar and the IAMAI puts current internet adoption in India at more than 58 percent.
Kepios’s analysis indicates that – on a relative basis – India’s internet penetration rate has increased by 6.7 percent over the past 12 months, which is more than five times faster than the 1.2 percent relative increase we see in China’s internet population over the same period.
Comparing these new internet adoption figures with the latest population data from the United Nations, our analysis indicates that there are now more than 850 million internet users in India.
However, despite impressive trends in India’s internet penetration rate, the country is still home to the world’s largest unconnected population.
The latest data indicate that more than 600 million people remain offline in India today, with the country home to more than twice as many “unconnected” as China.
India’s offline population has fallen by more than 50 million over the past year though, so there’s plenty of room for optimism in these latest numbers.
And figures for internet use in Indonesia offer a similarly promising outlook.
Kepios’s analysis of the latest data from a variety of reputable sources shows that reported figures for internet use in the world’s fourth most populous nation have surged by almost 10 percent over the past year.
Research indicates that roughly 78.3 percent of Indonesia’s population is now online, equating to a user total of more than 223 million.
However, our analysis suggests that the 9.9 percent relative increase in internet user numbers in Indonesia is more likely due to updates in reporting, and actual growth rates are likely to be somewhat lower than these figures suggest.
The net outcome is still encouraging though, with Indonesia’s “unconnected” population now falling below 62 million.
Global internet user numbers
Together with updates for various other countries, the latest data indicate that there are now 5.64 billion people using the internet, which equates to 68.7 percent of the world’s total population.
That figure has grown by 2.6 percent over the past year, with reported internet user totals increasing by 144 million since April 2024.
But despite these encouraging trends, the same data reveals some enduring imbalances in global connectivity.
For example, women are still meaningfully less likely than men to have internet access at a worldwide level.
The “digital gender gap” has been closing over recent years, and it’s worth highlighting that internet adoption appears to be growing more quickly amongst women than it does amongst men.
However, the latest data suggest that 66.5 percent of women have internet access today, compared with 70.8 percent for men.
That 4.3 percentage point difference points to a gender gap of more than 200 million users, with the disparity at its greatest across Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Internet access is also significantly lower in rural areas, with the latest data indicating that more than half of the world’s rural populations remain offline in April 2025.
The outlook for digital adoption
Addressing these imbalances will be key steps towards ensuring that everybody around the world has equal access to the information, services, and opportunities that the internet brings.
Around the world, roughly 2.57 billion people remain offline in April 2025, which equates to 31.3 percent of the global population.
It’s unlikely that we’ll ever see internet adoption rates reach 100 percent – partly because some people will choose not to use the internet – but we’re still a long way from the goal of ensuring that everyone who wants to use the internet is able to do so.
At current growth rates, global internet adoption should reach 70 percent by the start of 2027, but that same trajectory suggests that fewer than three in four people around the world will be using the internet by the end of this decade.
It’s also important to highlight that “connecting the unconnected” becomes increasingly difficult the closer we get to universal adoption, in large part due to the logistical and infrastructural challenges associated with connecting remote and underserved communities.
For perspective, data from the World Bank suggests that close to 9 percent of the world’s population still doesn’t have access to electricity, with that figure equating to more than 700 million individuals.
Meanwhile, a similar number of people still do not have access to basic drinking water services, while 785 million adults around the world are unable to read or write.
Mobile’s role in connectivity
But despite these challenges, data from GSMA Intelligence shows that the number of people using mobile devices continues to grow.
A total of 5.81 billion people around the world now use mobile phones, which equates to 70.7 percent of the total global population.
However, a meaningful number of mobile users do not use their handsets to access the internet, and GSMA Intelligence’s data indicates that roughly 1 billion active mobile users do not have a mobile data subscription.
It’s important to note that some of these users may still access WiFi internet services via their mobile handset, but we haven’t seen any conclusive data on the extent of such WiFi-only access in less developed economies.
Meanwhile, for added perspective, data from Ericsson suggests that roughly 1.1 billion of the 8.5 billion mobile handsets in use today can be considered “feature” phones.
At a global level, smartphones dominate the mobile market, accounting for 83.7 percent of total mobile connections, and 87 percent of connections associated with mobile phones.
However, these figures also indicate that roughly 1 in 8 mobile handsets in use around the world today isn’t optimised for internet use.
Smartphones continue to capture an ever greater share of the mobile market though, so it’s not unreasonable to expect that many of today’s “offline” mobile users will upgrade to internet-optimised handsets over the next few years.
Mobile connections catching up
But handsets aren’t the only aspect of the mobile experience enjoying “upgrades”, and the latest data from Ookla reveals that the speed of the typical cellular data connection is now rapidly approaching parity with the speed of fixed internet connections.
It’s important to highlight that Ookla has revised its methodology for reporting mobile connection speeds over recent weeks, which means that these latest Speedtest values may not be directly comparable with values for previous periods.
That change doesn’t detract from the most interesting comparison in the company’s latest data though, which shows that – on average – mobile data connections are now less than 10 percent slower than fixed internet connections.
At a worldwide level, mobile users can now expect a median download speed of 90.64 Mbps, which is less than 8 percent slower than the median fixed bandwidth of 98.31 Mbps.
The data dilemma
To put these figures in context, the typical mobile internet user should now have sufficient bandwidth to stream six separate 4K movies simultaneously via their mobile handset.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these accelerating connections continue to fuel demand for mobile data, with the latest data from Ericsson’s Mobile Visualizer tool indicating that global cellular traffic now exceeds 163 billion gigabytes every month.
And if you’re struggling to get your head around that figure, Ericsson reports that the typical user now consumes 21.6 GB of data every month.
That average varies meaningfully around the world of course, from a low of 6.7 GB per month in Sub-Saharan Africa, to a high of 36 GB per month across the Indian subcontinent.
But for a somewhat startling comparison, back in 1984, total, combined global internet bandwidth was just 15 GB per month.
In other words, the typical mobile user now consumes more data on their smartphone than the whole internet consumed for all connected activities in the year when the Apple Macintosh was launched.
The scale of today’s global mobile data transfer isn’t without consequence though, as we explored in some detail in our Digital 2025 Global Overview Report.
Indeed, the reference figures that we used in that study indicate that the world’s mobile data usage now requires more than 21 billion kWh of energy every month, which is roughly 7 times as much energy as the whole of London uses for all of its electrical needs – including transport.
So, while accelerating connections are undoubtedly improving our mobile experiences, it’s worth remembering that faster “doomscrolling” will only serve to exacerbate the very doom that fills our feeds.
Indeed, data from Ericsson highlights that video accounts for the vast majority of mobile data bandwidth, accounting for more than three times as much as all other application types combined.
The company’s latest report indicates that the world’s mobile users consume more than 110 billion gigabytes of videos each month, out of a combined total of 147 billion gigabytes per month across all application types including social networking, software updates, and file sharing.
The rise of short videos
But it’s not just Ericsson’s data that points to the irrepressible rise of mobile video.
Great new research from GWI shows that watching videos has become one of the world’s most popular online activities too, with more than 9 in 10 of us saying that we watch this kind of content each week, even without factoring streaming platforms like Netflix.
And in fact, it appears that shorter clips have become internet users’ preferred video formats, with 87.5 percent of online adults saying that they watch formats like TikToks and Reels every week.
When it comes to frequency, people say that – on average – they watch short videos at least once every two days, with the global midpoint sitting at 4.12 days each week.
That figure rises to more than 5 days per week in Nigeria and the Philippines, although – somewhat surprisingly – it falls below 3 days per week in the UK, and the average for Japan is less than 2.
But as we see so often in GWI’s excellent data, people’s habits vary meaningfully by demographic.
Given the profile of the audiences that we see using platforms like TikTok and Instagram [see our complete April report for details], it’s perhaps unsurprising to learn that shorter video formats are most popular amongst younger age groups.
For example, women aged 16 to 24 say that they watch short videos on almost 5 days out of every 7, while their male peers report an average of just over 4.7 days per week.
Older generations seem less enamoured with these formats though, with respondents aged 65 and above saying that they watch short videos on fewer than 2 days each week (although note that the reduced geographic coverage for this audience in GWI’s survey may skew these figures).
Go shorty
Furthermore, this new GWI dataset reveals that the world spends an impressive amount of time watching short videos.
At a worldwide level, online adults say that they spend an average of 6 hours and 37 minutes watching content like Reels, TikToks, and Shorts every week, which equates to just under an hour (57 minutes) each day.
However, that average varies considerably by geography.
At the top end of the scale, Kenyans say that they spend an average of 11½ hours per week watching short videos, which equates to almost 100 minutes each day.
Japan’s internet users have significantly less interest in short videos though, with the typical online adult in the country saying that they spend less than two hours per week watching this kind of content.
There are a few surprises in this data though, most notably when it comes to behaviours in the UK.
For perspective, more than 1 in 3 online adults in the UK say that they use TikTok each month, and the platform’s own data suggests that ads on its platform now reach more than 25 million users in the country.
However, UK respondents to GWI’s latest survey say that they spend an average of just over 4 hours each week watching short videos, which is more than one-third less than the global average.
Short is longer than long
Meanwhile, in something of a linguistic paradox, people report spending more time watching short videos like TikToks and Reels than they spend watching longer videos like vlogs and “how to” guides.
And just for clarity, note that “long online video” does not include streaming TV content (e.g. Netflix and Disney+), which we cover separately in our April report.
On average, online adults in 54 of the world’s largest economies say that they spend just under 5 hours per week watching longer online videos, with average frequency sitting at 3.27 days per week.
As we see for short videos though, these longer video formats are considerably less popular in Europe than they are across the rest of the world.
Having said that, both short and long video formats see similar patterns across demographics, with younger audiences significantly more likely to watch content on platforms like YouTube than people in older generations are.
Social app insights
But how do these self-reported values compare with data that tracks people’s actual platform use?
Well, Similarweb has recently launched a huge new App Intelligence product, and they’ve kindly allowed us to share a selection of findings from this valuable new dataset.
Just before we dive into the data, while these charts might look similar to those that we featured in previous reports, please note that the data source has changed, so the values included in this latest report are not comparable with values that we reported in previous editions of our Global Digital Reports.
It’s also important to stress that the figures for time and frequency in this dataset focus solely on active users of each stated platform, so they report something slightly different to the GWI values that we explored in the previous section of this article.
Average time per day
Similarweb’s data reveals that TikTok attracts the greatest daily time per user, with the platform’s active Android audience spending an average of 1 hour and 35 minutes per day scrolling short videos in their feeds.
YouTube ranks second in this new dataset, with Similarweb’s data pointing to an average of 1 hour and 24 minutes per user, per day on Android devices.
And Instagram ranks third, with the platform’s typical Android app user spending 1 hour and 10 minutes each day using the app.
And critically, these figures – as well as the overall ranking positions – seem to corroborate the findings of GWI’s latest research: video is indeed responsible for a significant share of the world’s online activity.
However, Similarweb’s data suggests a slightly different take on the balance between short and long video formats.
Across Android app users, YouTube accounts for significantly more time than any other video or social platform, principally because it has the largest active user base of any mobile app.
Indeed, Similarweb’s data suggests that – across Android and iOS devices – the active audiences of Instagram and Facebook are just three-quarters the size of YouTube’s active app base, while TikTok’s audience is less than 60 percent as big.
And for added perspective, YouTube also reports the world’s largest social ad audience, with global reach in excess of 2.5 billion users each month.
But while YouTube’s “Shorts” format has gained meaningful momentum since its launch in late 2020, the platform is perhaps still best known for “longer” video formats.
Having said that, one of YouTube’s strengths is the diversity of content it offers, as evidenced by what its users search for on the platform.
In particular, the frequency with which people search for movies on YouTube brings us to one of the most interesting trends in online content today.
YouTube is “multi-media”
Various data points support the idea that YouTube accounts for a considerable share of total “connected time”, from Similarweb’s data for share of app time we saw above, to its equally interesting data for global web activity.
However, as we’ll explore below, YouTube isn’t just a “video” platform.
YouTube is part TV
For starters, YouTube doesn’t just top the charts for online content; it’s also increasingly topping TV rankings, even when it comes to charts that include “offline” delivery formats like broadcast and cable TV channels.
For example, Nielsen reports that YouTube accounted for 12 percent of total TV viewing time in the United States in March 2025.
That’s half as much time as all US cable channels combined, and more than 50 percent ahead of the time that Americans spent watching Netflix.
And interestingly, at a worldwide level, connected TVs (CTV) are now the second most important device when it comes to YouTube activity, with Google’s own data indicating that almost 45 percent of all YouTube accounts access the platform’s content via a connected TV at least once a month.
Mobile still dominates YouTube activity, with a hefty 99.7 percent of the platform’s audience using mobile for at least some of their monthly YouTube viewing.
However, CTV now ranks ahead of laptop and desktop computers as well as tablets in terms of overall platform reach.
And CTV is particularly important in the platform’s highest value markets, with almost 97 percent of YouTube users in the US accessing the platform’s content via connected TVs, and the figure for UK audiences also in excess of 90 percent.
But it’s not just YouTube that’s gaining momentum on our larger screens, and data shows that online adults are increasingly consuming “connected content” on TVs.
For example, GWI’s latest wave of research shows that close to 1 in 3 internet users aged 16 and above now uses a TV to access digital content each month, which is separate to the 90.7 percent who say that they watch streaming TV content like Netflix.
And there’s still room for this figure to grow too.
Almost half of GWI’s global respondents now say that they now own a smart TV, which suggests that a quarter of these device owners have yet to start accessing digital content directly on their TV.
YouTube is part music
Meanwhile, data also shows that YouTube is one of the world’s top destinations for music.
Spotify may still be the platform that most people associate with digital music, and understandably so: the Swedish platform now reports 675 million monthly active users, and that active user base has grown by 12 percent over the past year.
However, GWI’s research indicates that close to half of all online adults watch music videos online each month, and Google Trends data reveals that music-related queries account for 1 in 3 of the top 20 YouTube search terms.
And even more tellingly, music-related content accounts for all of YouTube’s ten most watched videos, although it’s important to highlight that half of these clips are nursery rhymes.
I’ll leave it to you to decide whether Baby Shark qualifies as “music”… doo doo doo doo.
[Note that the chart below is taken from our Digital 2025 Global Overview Report]
But perhaps the clearest indicator of music’s importance to YouTube is the fact that the company launched a dedicated YouTube Music service back in 2025.
That service has grown at an impressive rate over the past decade, and data from Similarweb App Intelligence suggests that the platform’s dedicated YouTube Music app now has close to 300 million monthly active users.
Meanwhile, data from GWI suggests that the YouTube Music offering may enjoy even higher levels of use across all devices, with the company’s latest round of research indicating that more than half a billion people may use YouTube Music every month.
YouTube is part social
Meanwhile, even though many people resist the classification, YouTube also dominates social media.
Sure, YouTube may be less “socially oriented” than platforms like Facebook and X, but the sheer volume of activity in the platform’s comments section means it’s no less deserving of the “social” moniker than platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
It’s unclear what percentage of YouTube users actively engage with the platform’s content – as opposed to merely watching videos – but Google’s own data shows that it actively removed more than 5 billion comments from the platform in 2024 alone, suggesting that the platform sees hundreds of billions of comments each year, perhaps even trillions.
Meanwhile, YouTube’s top 10 videos alone have amassed more than 270 million likes between them, so it’s safe to say that “likes” and “shares” should be on par with other “social” platforms too.
But talking of other platforms, let’s see what else has been happening across the world’s most popular social media services.
Telegram passes 1 billion
Telegram is the latest social platform to reach the prestigious billion users club, with the platform’s founder, Paul Du Rove, reporting “significantly over 1 billion monthly active users” on March 19th.
The platform doesn’t publish user figures on a consistent basis, so it’s tricky to know exactly how fast the platform is growing.
However, given that Du Rove reported the platform’s 950 million user milestone on 23 July 2024, we might conclude that Telegram has added an average of 209,000 active users per day in the interim.
For perspective, during the time it took Telegram to add those most recent 50 million active users (MAUs):
TikTok added 237 million MAUs to its reported ad reach figure
Instagram added 167 million MAU to its reported ad reach figure
Facebook added 106 million MAUs to its reported ad reach figure
YouTube added 33 million MAUs to its reported ad reach figure
Snapchat added 5 million MAUs to its reported ad reach figure
Messenger’s reported ad reach figure fell by 12 million MAUs
X’s reported ad reach figure fell by 22 million MAUs
But for perspective, while Telegram’s recent growth is perhaps not as impressive as the momentum enjoyed by TikTok, the key story for Telegram here is that the platform has continued to grow at a time when one of its top rivals – Facebook Messenger – has lost millions of monthly active users.
Facebook’s reach still growing
But despite a decline in Messenger reach, this quarter’s report has better news for Meta’s flagship platform.
The company’s latest data indicates that Facebook’s ad reach continues to grow, with figures published in the company’s ad tools alluding to quarter-on-quarter growth of 2.5 percent.
Total global Facebook ad reach stood at 2.34 billion at the start of April 2025, which was 57 million more than the figure indicated by the same tools at the start of this year.
For perspective, these figures suggest that Facebook ads reach 28.5 percent of the global population each month, and more than 4 in 10 (40.3 percent) of the world’s adults aged 18 and above.
With a local ad audience of close to 400 million monthly active users, India accounts for the greatest share of Facebook’s global ad reach, and the platform’s audience in the country is almost double the size of Facebook’s audience in the United States, which ranks second.
In addition, Facebook’s ad reach in both Indonesia and Brazil exceeds 100 million monthly active users, and it’s worth noting that all four of these countries continue to see Facebook ad reach increase too.
Look beyond demographics
However, marketers may want to keep an eye on Facebook’s audience demographics.
In particular, the platform’s reported figures for reach amongst adults aged 18 and above now exceeds the total adult population across the Philippines, the UAE, Vietnam, Mexico, and Peru.
Similarly, the share of total Facebook ad reach attributable to male users aged 24 and 25 seems unusually high compared with the reported values for male users aged 23 and 26.
Indeed, Meta’s latest reported value for Facebook ad reach amongst males aged 24 equates to 103 percent of the total global population for this demographic reported by the United Nations.
For context, this anomaly is most likely the result of users “misrepresenting” their true age; the fact that ad reach peaks at age 24 for both male and female users suggests that many users simply enter 2000 as their year of birth, rather than entering their true birth date.
However, this may well be to protect their privacy – or even for vanity reasons – and there’s nothing to suggest that users of this age are more likely to be “fake” compared with users of any other age.
Having said that, these quirks in the data mean that you may want to consider using alternatives to demographic targeting.
TikTok vs Instagram: the rivalry returns
After last quarter’s “corrections” in TikTok’s ad reach data, the platform’s reported ad reach figures appear to have bounced back over recent weeks, and the platform is once again running neck and neck with Instagram.
Indeed, Kepios analysis of figures published in both companies’ ad planning tools indicates that TikTok’s reported global ad reach is now just 0.1 percent lower than the global Instagram reach figure published in Meta’s planning tools.
However, with TikTok’s tools only reporting data for audiences aged 18 and above, it’s more representative to compare these platforms’ adult audiences.
And sure enough, TikTok’s reported reach for users aged 18 and above is now meaningfully greater than Instagram’s report reach for the same demographic.
Take a multi-metric view
As always though, we’d advise caution when interpreting these ad reach figures, in particular because most ad reach figures are measured in active accounts rather than unique individuals.
Indeed, third-party data indicates that Instagram may still be meaningfully ahead of its arch rival in “deduplicated” use.
For example, Similarweb’s App Intelligence data indicates that Instagram may still have hundreds of millions more monthly active users than TikTok.
Similarly, the latest research from GWI shows that – outside of China – online adults are still considerably more likely to use Instagram than they are to use TikTok.
And perhaps most tellingly, GWI’s data shows that people in this cohort are almost twice as likely to say that Instagram is their “favourite” social platform as they are to choose TikTok.
However, despite the apparent difference in active user numbers, the difference in time spent using these two platforms is much smaller.
Indeed, despite TikTok’s smaller user base, the total time that Android users spend using the platform is only slightly lower than the total time that Android users spend using Instagram.
And in fact, Similarweb’s App Intelligence data shows that the typical TikTok user spends 35 percent longer using the platform’s Android app each day than the typical Instagram user spends using the Instagram app on Android devices.
Instagram tends to enjoy a higher frequency of use though, both in terms of “active days” and the average number of sessions per day.
False opposition
However, platform rivalries aside, the clear takeaway from all of this data is that both platforms offer hugely compelling opportunities.
And – critically – use of these platforms is not a mutually exclusive, binary choice.
Indeed, most users of either platform also use the other, and if we remove India from the equation (where TikTok remains banned), the overlaps are even more apparent.
So, if our audiences are comfortable using both Instagram and TikTok, there’s no reason why marketers shouldn’t do the same.
It’s time to take gaming seriously
Turning our attention to other popular online activities, the latest wave of research from GWI shows that 5 in every 6 adult internet users play video games.
In some ways, this data serves to reinforce stereotypes, but – as we explore below – the most important takeaways here relate the fact that video games actually have strong appeal across all demographics.
Most people are gamers
Overall, younger age groups are the most likely to play video games, with a compelling 92.5 percent of internet users aged 16 to 24 saying that they play games on at least one device (note that there’s no specific usage frequency or time period associated with this figure).
However, well over half of internet users aged 65-plus say that they’re gamers too, with nearly 6 in 10 men in this age group saying that they play video games.
People in South-East Asia are the most likely to play video games, with an impressive 96.7 percent of online adults in the Philippines answering in the affirmative.
Perhaps surprisingly though, despite Japan’s indelible link with the industry, Japanese internet users are the least likely to say that they play video games.
At a worldwide level, smartphones are by far the most popular gaming device, with more than two-thirds of online adults saying that they play video games on a mobile handset.
Meanwhile, 1 in 3 adult internet users plays video games on a computer (laptop or desktop), while almost 1 in 4 (23.4 percent) uses a gaming console like a PlayStation or an Xbox.
Game time
Worldwide, 72.9 percent of internet users aged 16 and above play video games at least once per week, which is only slightly behind the number of people who say that they use email (75.5 percent).
And strikingly, GWI’s latest data shows that a greater number of people play video games each week (72.9 percent) than watch streaming TV channels like Netflix and Amazon Prime (70.4 percent).
But perhaps most importantly, internet users aged 16 and above spend an average of almost 7 hours per week – 59 minutes per day – playing video games.
For comparison, that’s longer than they say they spend watching short videos on platforms like TikTok, longer than they spend watching streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime, and only 2 minutes per day less than they spend using social media.
So, if you weren’t already convinced that video games are worthy of your attention, these figures suggest that you might want to reevaluate that position.
But how can we take best advantage of the video game opportunity?
Understanding gamers
As we noted above, GWI’s new data does serve to reinforce some stereotypes.
For example, younger men spend the greatest amount of time playing video games.
Indeed, at an average of 11 hours and 22 minutes per week, male internet users aged 16 to 24 spend roughly 64 percent longer than the average online adult playing video games each week.
Consoles are the biggest contributor to this “gap”, with younger men spending significantly more time using gaming consoles than internet users in any other demographic.
And overall, men tend to spend longer playing video games than women do.
However, that overall finding is largely driven by the habits of younger audiences, and in fact, by the time people reach their 50s, women actually spend longer playing video games than men do.
Beware of stereotypes
And that’s not the only finding in this new GWI data that challenges conventional gaming stereotypes.
For me, one of the most striking takeaways is that internet users aged 65 and above spend an average of 3 hours and 47 minutes per week playing video games, which is 20 minutes longer than they spend watching online video (excluding streaming TV).
And furthermore, while men account for the greatest share of activity, video games are still hugely popular amongst women.
For example, across all age groups, online women spend an average of 6 hours per week playing video games, with mobile games accounting for roughly two-thirds of the total.
And in fact, that’s roughly one hour more than women spend watching broadcast TV, an hour more than they spend listening to streaming music, and a full 90 minutes longer than they spend reading press media, both online and offline.
Research your audience
Across all age groups, “shooter” formats like Call of Duty are the most popular genre of video game, with more than half of adult gamers saying that they play at least one title in this category.
Action adventure games like Assassin’s Creed rank second, with just under half of gamers saying they play at least one title in this category, while sports games like EA Sports FC rank third.
However, the popularity of each genre varies meaningfully across demographics.
For example, women tend to prefer Action Adventure titles over Shooter games.
Meanwhile, older audiences are much more likely to play puzzle games than shooter or action adventure titles.
So, if you’re keen to explore the video game opportunity, it’s well worth taking some time to dig deeper into this data, to fully understand the habits and interests of your audience.
The esports opportunity
And if you’re looking for related opportunities to engage audiences that are interested in video games, esports may be worth a look.
At a worldwide level, 1 in 6 online adults say they’re interested in esports, although the audience tends to skew male, with men roughly twice as likely as women to express an active interest.
However, esports have significantly greater appeal in certain geographies, especially across South-East Asia.
Internet users in Brazil express the greatest interest in esports, with 28.8 percent of online adults in the country answering in the affirmative.
Meanwhile, more than a quarter of adult internet users in the Philippines and Vietnam express an interest in esports, while more than 1 in 5 share this interest across a further seven countries.
And given the sheer size of the country’s online population – not to mention its rapid growth – it’s particularly interesting to note the appeal that esports have in India.
Crypto creeps back
One in ten online adults says that they own some form of crypto today, with ownership rates creeping back up after the thawing of the “crypto winter” that seemed to plague the sector over recent years.
For context, the equivalent value of Bitcoin in US dollars jumped by a multiple of 6.75 between 21 November 2022 and 17 December 2024, although – at the time of writing – the digital currency’s value has retreated by a meaningful margin since those December highs (disclaimer: none of this article offers any form of investment advice).
Men are still significantly more likely than women to have embraced digital currencies, with men in their late 20s and early 30s the most likely to report ownership of at least one cryptocurrency.
Crypto countries
Meanwhile, ownership of crypto varies meaningfully by geography.
Internet users in Turkey are the most likely to say they own at least one digital currency, with well over a quarter (27.3 percent) of online adults in the country saying that they held at least one form of cryptocurrency at the end of 2024.
Nigerians rank second, with 26 percent claiming ownership, while Argentinians rank third, at 23.6 percent.
However, one of the most interesting findings in this geographic data is that there’s no clear trend to the countries where crypto is most popular.
Admittedly, internet users in countries where the local fiat currency experiences more extreme fluctuations – such as Turkey and Argentina – are more likely to hold crypto.
However, the fact that the Netherlands and Switzerland place relatively highly in the geographical ranking suggests that this isn’t the only driver of interest.
Similarly, crypto ownership varies significantly within each continent, and there’s no discernible pattern between continents as a whole, either.
Wrapping up
That’s all for this quarter’s analysis, but don’t forget that you can dig deeper into all of this quarter’s data in the full report embed, which you’ll find towards the top of this article.
Please let me know if you spot an interesting trend in the data that I haven’t covered in this analysis too; I’d love to nerd out with you over on LinkedIn if you spot something, so please feel free to tag me in a post highlighting your findings.
And if you’re looking for even more data, don’t forget that you’ll find our complete collection of Digital 2025 local country reports – all free to read – over in our DataReportal library.
I’ll be back on your screens again in just a few weeks, when we’ll explore the key headlines and highlights from our upcoming Digital 2025 July Global Statshot Report.
Click here to see all of Simon’s articles, read his bio, and connect with him on social media.