Other countries demonstrating rapid growth in 2020 include Spain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, India, and Finland. Notably, the top 10 rates of increase in 2020 are almost all a good deal higher than the top 10 rates in 2019—another sign of just how much the pandemic has propelled social networking in recent months. The Mobile Shift in Social Networking Will Continue.

The more developed countries within the Gulf Cooperation Council—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—are likely to have much stronger Instagram usage rates than those in northern and particularly sub-Saharan Africa. This same trend is reflected across nearly every digital and social media trend in the region.

Four of Facebook’s top five growth markets—Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates—are located in the region. The rest of Facebook’s 10 fastest-growing markets are also developing countries: India, Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam, the Philippines and South Africa. Developed countries in Europe will experience slower growth.