Meta-owned Facebook is by far the most popular social media platform in South Africa.

According to GlobalStats Statcounter data, as of February 2023, Facebook had a market share greater than all social media platforms combined – with a 72.4% market share.

Elon Musk-owned Twitter is in second place, with 9.79%.

Pinterest has a 7.86% market share and is in third place, while Meta-Owned Instagram is in fourth place with a 6.93% market share.

Youtube (1.89%), LinkedIn (0.75%), and Reddit (0.26%) did not even achieve 5% of the market share.

Importantly, GlobalStats does not include TikTok in its stats.

The Chinese App is incredibly popular worldwide and is the second most downloaded free app on the Google Play Store and the IOS App Store in South Africa.

Below are the most popular social media platforms in South Africa (excluding TikTok):

Globally, the situation is quite similar regarding the market share of social media platforms.

Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world, with a 69.32% market share.

Twitter (10.49%), Instagram (9.74%) and Pinterest (5.75%) all follow, while Youtube (3.57%), Reddit (0.42%) and LinkedIn (0.33%) again failed to get a 5% market share.

Despite Facebook having the largest market share for social media platforms on mobile and tablet devices in South Africa, it does not have the largest market share on desktop.

With a market share of 36.03%, Pinterest just beat Facebook’s market share of 32.04%.

However, globally, Pinterest (17.45%) is not the dominant social media platform on desktop, with Facebook having a market share of nearly 50%.

Meta’s issues 

Despite Facebook’s large market share, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would cut 11,000 jobs last November. 

The reductions totalled roughly 13% of the group’s workforce at the time, and the company also said it would extend its hiring freeze in the first quarter.

The group announced another round of job cuts in March, totalling 10,000.

Meta fired its staff to reduce costs following several quarters of disappointing revenues.

The retrenchments reflect a major slowdown in the digital advertising market, a shaky economy on the brink of recession, and the company’s multibillion-dollar investment into the VR-centred Metaverse.

However, Meta was not the only major tech company to let go of large amounts of its staff, with Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Twitter also firing thousands of staff members.

---

Read: The coolest gadgets from MWC 2023 – including foldable phones and exoskeletons

---