Social media is now an integral part of our daily lives. Anyone who uses the internet these days also uses social media. The latest report by Comscore reveals that a whopping 97% of all Internet users in India accessed social media between September 2021 and September 2022. During the same time period, India had approximately 470 million unique visitors to social media platforms.
But here the question arises, how do consumers in India access social media?
Most Indians prefer using mobiles to access social media
As the smartphone and mobile-internet adoption has grown in the recent years, most people prefer to access social media through their mobile phones. A staggering 82.9% of all Internet users in India use their mobile devices to access social media. On the other hand, a small 4.3% of Internet users use desktops/laptops to visit social media websites. While 9.7% used both mobile and desktop.
To put it in other words, out of the total 485 million Internet users in India recorded in September 2022, 402 million used social media exclusively on mobile devices, 47 million used social media both on mobile and on desktop, and 21 million used social media exclusively on desktop.
Comscore report also highlighted the total time spent by Indians on social media sites has nearly tripled since January 2019. The time spent on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter increased a massive 197% between January 2019 and September 2022.
Top social media apps in India by unique visitors
Meta-owned WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram remains the top three social media platforms in India, in terms of unique visitors between January 2019 and September 2022.
In September 2022, India recorded 400 million unique visitors on WhatsApp messaging app. Facebook is the second widely used social media app in India, with 232 million unique visitors, followed by Instagram with 231 million unique visitors. However, it is important to note that Instagram is fast catching up to Facebook in terms of unique visitors and time spent. This can be justified with the fact that young people (aged 18-34) are spending more time on Instagram Reels.
ShareChat and Moj, two homegrown social media apps, also made the top ten list of social media apps in India. As of September 2022, ShareChat had 118 million unique visitors, while Moj had 93 million.
