Aside from the tremendous growth anticipated in Instagram users (see chart), a key takeaway from eMarketer’s new estimates of social media use is that future social media growth will come mainly from improving infrastructure in developing countries via government investment and more affordable mobile phone offerings.
Social media use in the developed countries, eMarketer says, already is widespread.
Globally, one in three people (2.5 billion) used a social network last year, eMarketer estimates, which was nearly 10% more than in 2016. Social use in Asia-Pacific countries, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa supplied much of the growth.
The news for Instagram is upbeat. Nearly 600 million people globally used it regularly in 2017, or about 24% of total social network users. By 2021, this share is expected to top 30%. Facebook remains the dominant social network worldwide. More than 1.54 billion people, or 62% of social network users, visited Facebook at least once a month in 2017.
