A guide to the numbers
What counts as a social media user?
Choose the measure that answers your question.
A user count is meaningful only with its definition. Check what is counted, what activity qualifies, the time window and the population covered. A person, an account and an identifier are different units.
This release does not estimate a worldwide total of unique social-media users.
Which measure do you need?
Start with the question you want the evidence to answer.
How many users are active each day or month?
Daily and monthly active-user measures describe qualifying activity within a company-defined window. Check the activity rule, counted entity, product scope and whether the figure is an average or a count at the end of a period.
Our Pinterest brief follows monthly active users at quarter end. Our Snapchat brief follows the quarterly average of daily active users. Each includes the original disclosure and definition; they do not form a common audience ranking.
What share of a population says it uses a platform?
Survey adoption describes people’s answers to a particular question. Preserve its wording, age range, geography, sampling method and denominator. A question about ever using a service does not establish daily activity.
The Instagram, YouTube and Reddit survey briefs use Pew Research Center’s ever-use question for U.S. adults aged 18+. They include ages 18–19 but do not estimate teenagers as a separate group or describe worldwide audiences.
How many accounts or members have registered?
Registered membership describes registrations or membership under the source’s definition. Check how inactive and duplicate accounts are treated. Registration alone does not establish that someone was active during the period you are studying.
How many users could an advertiser reach?
Advertising reach is an estimate of an addressable advertising audience. Check eligibility, estimation methods and overlap. The estimate is not automatically a count of all platform users or distinct people.
How many users are active across a company’s apps?
A family-of-apps measure covers a group of products. Check which apps qualify and how the company handles overlap. It cannot stand in for the user count of one individual platform.
One platform, two different questions
Reddit’s Q2 2026 company disclosure reports 130.3 million average daily active uniques. Reddit identifies unique identifiers visiting its website or opening an app within a 24-hour period. The reported quarterly DAUq figure averages the daily counts over the quarter; it is not a deduplicated quarterly count or a census of distinct people.
Source: Reddit Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results, published July 30, 2026; quarter ended June 30, 2026. Key Operating Metrics, average Daily Active Uniques (DAUq), Q2 2026; definition of DAUq. Worldwide company operating measure; accessed September 30, 2026, original source rechecked October 1, 2026.
Our Reddit platform brief answers how many U.S. adults say they ever use Reddit, based on Pew Research Center’s 2025 survey. The two findings cannot be placed into a single like-for-like ranking.
Example lineage and reuse
Evidence release company-editorial-2026-10-02; observation reddit-average-dauq-worldwide-2026-q2. Qualifying Reddit unique identifiers under the company DAUq definition; not a survey population or all people.
Extracted into this record and integration checked October 2, 2026 (UTC). Existing guide fact and definition checked against the retained evidence register and company-source recheck note. This integration does not claim a fresh source retrieval or independent human approval.
One attributed factual example in original wording with a link to the original disclosure. No open redistribution licence has been established for company reports, source graphics or a bulk dataset. No download, image export or copied source chart is offered.
Before comparing or combining figures
Can platform audiences be added together?
A person can use several services, and a service can count several accounts or identifiers associated with one person. Adding platform figures does not measure unique social-media users. A defensible total needs a source with an explicit cross-platform population and overlap methodology.
What happens when a metric is discontinued?
The last disclosed figure retains its original reference period. We do not update its date, interpolate a live counter or silently substitute a different metric. A discontinued series should remain labelled as such in the source record.