The social networking website Facebook has now more than 2 billion monthly active users, reaching more than a quarter of the world’s population or more than half of all internet users, the company announced on Tuesday.
“As of this morning, the Facebook community is now officially 2 billion people!”, Facebook founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a status update. “We’re making progress connecting the world, and now let’s bring the world closer together. It’s an honor to be on this journey with you.”
More than 800 million users “like” something on Facebook every day and more than 175 million people share a “Love” reaction each day, according to the company. More than 1 billion of its users use Groups at least once a month.
To mark the occasion, Facebook will thank users who react to a friend’s post with Love or wish someone a happy birthday. The company will also feature “fun facts” about how people are contributing to the community, as well as inspiring stories from the United States.
“As Mark mentioned last week at the Facebook Communities Summit, our mission is to bring the world closer together,” Facebook said. “Reaching this milestone is just one small step toward that goal. We are excited to continue to build products that allow people to connect with one another, regardless of where they live or what language they speak.”
Facebook was launched in February 2004 and reached 50 million users in October 2007, 100 million users in August 2008, 500 million users in July 2010, and 1 billion users in September 2012. It shows that the number of people using Facebook has doubled in just under 5 years.
With 2 billion users, Facebook now reaches roughly 26 percent of the world’s population. But the number of people who have access to the internet is estimated to be 3.66 billion, which means Facebook reaches about 55 percent.
To compare, the social networking website Twitter has 313 million monthly active users and the Chinese equivalent Sina Weibo has 340 million users. The Russian social networking website VK, which is more popular than Facebook in parts of eastern Europe, has 95 million monthly active users.
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