How much does Instagram earn Meta? Spoiler: a lot!

A document made public by Meta tells us more about the revenues generated by the Instagram application. Findings: in 2022, 30% of Meta's total revenues will come from its photo and video app.

Meta's legal filing to dismiss the FTC's antitrust lawsuit (which accuses Meta of abuse of dominance and seeks to force the group to sell Instagram and WhatsApp) gives us an insight into Instagram's revenue performance figures.

Instagram: Meta's golden goose

According to the documents consulted, in the first half of 2022 (the most recent figure), Instagram would have brought in $16.5 billion in advertising revenue for Meta. According to calculations by Bloomberg, which had access to the documents, this would represent 30% of Meta's total revenues in 2022. A fine performance considering that Meta acquired the app for $1 billion in 2012.

Instagram: exponential revenue growth

In addition to the 2002 figures, the unveiled documents give us a glimpse of the growth in revenues generated by the application.

• 11.3 billion in advertising revenues in 2018 
• 17.9 billion in 2019 
• 22 billion in 2020 
• 32.4 billion in 2021

According to Business Insider, by 2021, with $32.4 billion generated, Instagram's advertising revenues will be greater than those of YouTube, which will have raked in (only) $28.8 billion. This figure is explained by the amount that YouTube pays back to videographers: 55%.

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259 million users in Europe

In accordance with new European regulations, Meta is required to share its number of users in the EU every six months. The latest figures published give us an overview of the app's user distribution in Europe. On this basis, we know that IG had 259 million monthly active users in Europe in September 2023.

Given these figures, and based on the 2 billion users officially declared by Meta, Bloomberg estimates that Instagram probably has around 175 million users in the United States. The remaining majority of its audience would be in Asia (around 750 million users). With nearly India: 230 million users, India is now Instagram's largest market.