Meta Platforms Inc.’s Instagram will soon account for half of the company’s advertising revenue in the US, 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 now expected to top $32 billion in US 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.
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