Facebook users nearing two billion, a new record

Facebook under a microscope. (Gil C / Shutterstock.com)

Facebook has once again smashed its own impressive stats. In its latest earnings report, for Q4 2016, the social network reports 1.86 billion active users, a new record.

At the end of 2016, Facebook reported a record 1.86 billion users active each month on the social network, a 17 per cent increase on last year. The firm also counts 1.2 billion users for WhatsApp, 1 billion for Facebook Messenger and more than 600 million for Instagram. A total of 1.23 billion people worldwide log on to Facebook each day, making it the world's largest online community by far.

A huge majority of Facebook traffic now comes via mobile devices, with no less than 1.74 billion people logging on via the mobile app (+21 per cent) each month, of whom 1.15 billion connect daily (+23 per cent).

For Mark Zuckerberg, the goal is now to integrate video into all of these applications. The Facebook CEO already reports 150 million daily users for Instagram Stories and 400 million monthly users for the audio/video call functions in Messenger.

In the future, Facebook hopes to develop the use of Facebook Live, its live video broadcasting tool. A streaming app for TVs could even be in the works. Clearly, Mark Zuckerberg's firm hasn't finished drawing in users all around the world.