By Aisha Counts
Meta Platforms Inc.’s Instagram will soon account for half of the company’s advertising revenue in the U.S., according to estimates from research firm Emarketer, further cementing the photo- and video-sharing app’s role as the key growth driver for the company.
Instagram has steadily expanded into arguably the most important part of Meta’s business, not only for its role-driving revenue but also as a vehicle for features like Reels and Threads that offer competition to rivals. In 2021, Instagram generated $32.4 billion globally, or 27% of the company’s total sales. By early 2022, Instagram was responsible for nearly 30% of Meta’s global business, according to court filings released earlier this year.
Instagram is expected to top $32 billion in U.S. advertising revenue in 2025, up more than 24% from the current year, according to data from Emarketer. The video-sharing app has more than 148 million American users.
Meta’s focus on video content has been a major contributor to that growth, wrote Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Emarketer, in a blog post. “Instagram is now a video-first platform, with users spending close to two-thirds of their Instagram time watching videos,” she wrote.
Meta previously told investors that Instagram Reels, a short-form video product that rivals TikTok, makes up more than 50% of the time people spend on the app.
Feature Image Credit: Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg
By Aisha Counts
Washington Post
