Instagram’s monthly active users (MAUs) in the EU are growing significantly faster than Facebook’s, according to Meta’s latest transparency reports.
On 29 August, the tech giant reported the number of average MAUs on both platforms for the six-month period from 1 January to 30 June. The reports show that Facebook had around 263.6 million average MAUs in the EU while Instagram had 281.8 million.
But Instagram isn’t just bigger than Facebook, it’s growing a lot faster.
In April 2024, Meta shared the average MAUs of the two platforms between 1 October 2023 and 31 March 2024. The reports showed that Facebook had around 260.7 million MAUs while Instagram had just under 4 million more MAUs (264.3 million).
In other words, Instagram’s MAUs grew by 6.62% between October 2023 and June 2025 and Facebook’s grew by just 1.11% over the same period.
Meta clarified that it defines an MAU as a registered and logged-in user who has visited the platform through the web or their mobile device in the last 30 days. The figures also reflect MAUs in EU member states only and therefore exclude the UK.
While the above figures indicate that Instagram is leading the way in the EU, the social media landscape in the UK is considerably different.
Last month, YouGov published a report examining UK social media users’ consumption habits and found that Facebook remains the most popular platform in the country. Specifically, 76% of UK social media users said they were active on Facebook, compared with 55% on Instagram.
Therefore, even if Instagram is outperforming Facebook in the EU, marketers in the UK should think twice before prioritising Instagram over Facebook. In an interview with MediaCat last month, VaynerMedia’s vice president, Aengus Boyle, said marketers are ‘sleeping on’ Facebook.
‘I think Facebook is undervalued by marketers and has a lot of potential from an organic reach perspective and from a paid media perspective in terms of their ad stack, which is very advanced across the funnel, from awareness through to driving conversions,’ Boyle said.
Featured image: Brett Jordan / Unsplash
