Meta reached a new record number of users

The Meta is a truly massive corporation, so the equally massive and massive numbers are no surprise. After the Meta announced its latest financial results on Wednesday, other figures attracted particular attention. Among them, the record number of monthly active Facebook users stands out the most: 3.08 billion.

Yes, you read that right, 3.08 billion, which is a 3% increase over the same period last year. If we add to this that there are currently 7.9 billion people in the world, the number of monthly active Facebook users represents as much as 38.4 % of the entire global population. Not bad for a company that started in a 19-year-old college student's room, right? This growth and scale shows how important Facebook has become for communication, connection and content sharing in the lives of people around the world.

Številka je še toliko bolj presenetljiva, če upoštevamo, da Kitajska – s populacijo 1,4 milijarde – prepoveduje uporabo platforme znotraj svojih meja. Poleg tega obstaja veliko ljudi, ki sploh nimajo dostopa do interneta. Tako dejansko Facebook uporablja več kot polovica globalne populacije, ki ima možnost dostopa do interneta.

The tech giant reached one billion monthly active users in 2012 and 2 billion in 2017. Six years later, it now has more than 3 billion accounts on its servers.

The majority of Facebook users come from India, where, according to data from the research company Statista, there are as many as 314 million users in January 2023. It is followed by the USA, Indonesia and Brazil, where each country has over 100 million people who regularly use this social network.

Vendar pa pot do tega izjemnega dosežka ni bila preprosta in gladka, saj je Facebook – zdaj znan kot Meta – v svoji zgodovini doživel mnogo kontroverz. Eden najbolj odmevnih dogodkov je bil škandal s podjetjem Cambridge Analytica, ki je prizadel na desetine milijonov uporabnikov, saj so bili njihovi osebni podatki zlorabljeni v politične namene. Ta dogodek je imel pri preimenovanja podjetja iz Facebook v Meta pred približno dvema letoma ključno vlogo.

One of their latest ventures is the Threads project, which represents a decisive step against the competition, especially against Twitter. Despite its grand ambitions, it's hard to predict at this early stage how this project will fare and how it will affect the current social media landscape.

Meta remains in a dynamic position where it constantly faces challenges such as maintaining user privacy and security while trying to attract new users and maintain the loyalty of existing ones. Their story is an example of success in the world of technology, as they grew from the small room of a 19-year-old student into one of the most influential and largest social networks in the world. Despite all the obstacles and challenges they face, Meta continues to transform the way people communicate, connect and share content, and remains a key player in the digital age.