Telegram overtook Twitter and Snapchat for the first time in the number of users

The international agency We Are Social and Hootsuite have published the results of a joint study of global Internet trends in 2020. The internet user audience continues to grow, people spend more time on social media, and Facebook remains the most popular platform.

Published data show that as of January 2021, 4.66 billion people worldwide use the Internet, and the global penetration rate is 59.5%. Compared to last year, the number of users increased by 316 million people (7.3%). It is noted that the coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the growth of the Internet user audience, so the actual numbers may be even higher.

The report also states that there are currently 4.2 billion users on social media. Over the past year, this value has increased by 490 million users, which means an increase of 13%. Thus, currently, more than 53% of the world's population uses social networks.

As for the most popular platforms from the point of view of the audience, Facebook is expected to take first place here, more than 2.7 billion people use the social network. It is worth noting a significant breakthrough from the Telegram messenger, whose audience exceeded 500 million people, thanks to which it rose to the 11th line of the rating. It is noteworthy that for the first time Telegram managed to bypass such competitors as Twitter and Snapchat in popularity.

It should be noted that in addition to Facebook, five more platforms have an audience of over 1 billion people (YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WeChat).