Tanushree Basuroy
Research expert covering India
Social media usage in India - statistics & facts
India embraced the internet with open arms, and its digital population has grown rapidly over the past decade, crossing 800 million active internet users in 2025. What started with simple email correspondences, has expanded to a digital universe with social networking platforms by tech giants like Meta and X becoming a part of everyday life for millions of Indians.
As data packs got cheaper and the internet became more accessible, more Indians adopted the digital lifestyle. At the same time, smartphones became the primary screen for Indian customers. As a gregarious country, Indians love their social networking apps. The average Indian spent nearly two and half hours a day on social media.
Humble beginnings powered by affordable data
Orkut was one of the first, big social networking websites in the country, owned by Google and named after the employee who created it. In 2008, it was one of the most visited websites in the country until its closing was announced in 2014. Not that this stopped Indians from socializing virtually – the country simply transitioned to Facebook. As of 2022, India had the highest number of Facebook users across the globe. Furthermore, Indians adopted Meta’s other platforms as well.As data packs got cheaper and the internet became more accessible, more Indians adopted the digital lifestyle. At the same time, smartphones became the primary screen for Indian customers. As a gregarious country, Indians love their social networking apps. The average Indian spent nearly two and half hours a day on social media.
Video consumption drives social media usage
Apart from social networking apps, video sharing platforms, specifically YouTube was widely popular in India. Indian music record label, T-Series ranks among the most viewed and subscribed YouTube channels in the world. The evolution of short-form video apps increased the already large base of Indian social media consumption. This grew even more during the COVID-19 lockdown period in the country with the average user spending about 45 minutes a day on these platforms. A mixed crop of global and domestic players mushroomed in this niche market post the TikTok ban in 2020.Advertising and politics on social media
The rapid growth in internet users across the country, along with the uptake of marketplaces among social platforms boosted digital advertising and marketing. In recent years, social media advertising accompanied by a booming influencer market have reformed Indian advertising practices. Moreover, political campaigns were found to increasingly employ social media to reach voter bases, especially leading up to the 2024 general elections. In fact, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party allocated the bulk of its online advertising budget to social media platforms. This trend harks back to social media being more than a site for communication and socializing. Indian users take a keen interest in socio-political issues and debating such topics on social media. Over the years the latter has emerged as a major source of news among Indians, with a significant share sourcing their news from WhatsApp and YouTube. With an expanding content-hungry user base, that is equally vocal about the personal and the political online, India's Meta-dominated social media market has secured its position as a major market on the global stage.
