Liam Walsh
Liam is a Co-Director at Intelligency and heads up the agency's Digital Intelligence & Paid Social activity. Over the last decade, he has worked with brands from the world of sports such as Premier League clubs to entertainment such as Channel 4 and Disney.
Meta has reported that Instagram now has more users than Facebook in the EU in terms of monthly users compared to Facebook. This trend is currently specific to the EU and could be due to stricter data privacy laws and changing user preferences, as Facebook growth remains steady in other regions around the world.
Instagram Now Has More Users Than Facebook in the EU
This data was released last week by Meta and show that Instagram’s user share has increased. As the numbers show, Instagram has 269.1 million monthly users, while Facebook has 260.6 million. Just a few months ago, both apps had about the same number of users. But Instagram has pulled ahead, while Facebook’s growth has slowed down a bit and even declined slightly in recent months.
Is This Trend Happening Everywhere?
While Instagram’s rise is clear in the EU, it might not be a worldwide trend. Meta no longer reports user counts separately for Facebook; instead, they provide a combined total for all their apps (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Threads). However, based on the last time they did report Facebook’s numbers, it looks like this shift is mostly happening in the EU and possibly the U.S. In 2023, Facebook’s EU user count dropped a little and had already been slowing down since 2022. In other regions, Facebook is still growing steadily.
Why Are EU Users Moving Away From Facebook?
There are a few possible reasons why Facebook may be losing ground with European users. One reason could be that Europe’s data privacy laws have given users a clearer picture of how Facebook collects and uses data, which might have caused some users to step away from the app. Others may feel that Facebook has become outdated and are choosing newer apps. Whatever the cause, it’s clear that Instagram may be on its way to becoming Meta’s main app in some regions.
