Brazil: number of Facebook users 2017-2026

In 2021, Brazil was home to 148.57 million Facebook users. The number has been projected to drop to 151.09 million by 2025 – a decrease of approximately 1.7 percent. Brazil was the largest Facebook user base in Latin America in 2021, followed by Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina. Moreover, roughly 98 percent of internet users in the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas used social media.

The upper hand among heavy users

Brazilians spend more time on social media than any other population in the Western Hemisphere. Their heavy use of these platforms contributes to the prevalence of Mark Zuckerberg’s social network. Through Facebook, people in Brazil try to get to know more about the world and to keep in touch with each other: around half of adults on the social network used it as a source of news, while more than one out of three smartphone owners used Facebook Messenger at least once a day.

Limits to growth?

In the first half of 2020, Facebook accounted for almost 52 percent of all social media site visits in Brazil, followed by Instagram – which also belongs to Facebook, Inc. However, throughout that period – under the arguable influence of the COVID-19 outbreak – the market shares of Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest decreased in Brazil compared with the first half of 2019. Meanwhile, Instagram’s and Twitter’s shares increased by roughly 274 percent and 154 percent, respectively. Whether it is a trend or a temporary side effect, this shift may challenge Facebook’s hegemony in Brazil.