Social media is bigger than countries

If Facebook was a country it would be the largest in the world.

This past summer, Facebook released its financial results for the second quarter of 2016, which saw the platform grow to over 1.7 billion monthly active users (MAUs). Users for WashApp and Messenger were 1 billion, while Instagram registered 500 million users.

But Facebook is not the only one growing in terms of users. It’s a trend that seems to indicate that social media platforms are now growing bigger than countries.

In fact, if you compare the biggest countries in terms of population and the monthly active users of some of the largest social networks, a whopping 15 out of 20 are in the digital space, not sovereign nations.

TOP 2016 RANKING (by estimated population or monthly active users):

1. Facebook 1,712 million 11. US 3232. China 1,373 12. Twitter 3133. India 1.266 13. Baidu Tieba 3004. WhatsApp 1,000 13. Skype 3004. Messenger 1,000 14. Sina Weibo 2825. QQ 899 15. Indonesia 2586. WeChat 806 16. Viber 2497. QZone 652 17. Line 2188. Tumblr 555 18. Brazil 2059. EU 513 19. Pakistan 20110. Instagram 500 20. Snapchat 200

                         _Sources:_ [_CIA World Factbook_](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html) _-_ [_Statista_](https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/)  

While China and India remain the most populous countries in the world, they are outpaced by Facebook in terms of numbers. WhatsApp and Messenger are both 4th and Instagram is 10th.

Outside of the Facebook family of apps and tools, Tumblr is 8th, while Twitter, quite static in the ranking with a little over 300 million users, is 12th and Snapchat, with around 200 million MAUs, ranks 20th.

In China, Tencent controls QQ, WeChat, and QZone, which are 5th, 6th, and 7th in the list. Weibo ranks right after Twitter, in 13th position.

Back in 2014 — when I first posted on social media rapid growth — China and India were topping the rankings, while Facebook was 3rd with a bit more of 1.1 billion users.

Social Media Platforms are growing bigger than countriesFacebook is the largest social networks, third after China and India medium.com