Facebook sees a spike in monthly active users in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak

It probably comes as a shock to no one that people are using Facebook, and its additional social media platforms, more than ever under lockdown due to the coronavirus. 

During Wednesday’s earnings call, the company announced its seen a huge spike in its monthly active users with a 10 percent year over year increase.

On the call, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, revealed that for the first time ever more than three billion people have been using Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, or Messenger each month.

This includes 2.6 billion people using Facebook alone and more than 2.3 billion people using at least one of its services each day.

Additionally, in places that were hit by Covid-19 the hardest in volume, Facebook saw an increase in messaging volume by 50 percent. 

Meanwhile, voice and video calling has more than doubled across both Messenger and Whatsapp. 

Zuckerberg specifically called out Italy, one of the nations impacted the worst by the virus, saw a 70 percent increase on time spend across Facebook’s apps. 

Instagram and Facebook Live views doubled in one week. Meanwhile, time spent group video calling increased by more than one thousand percent over March. 

But the company is well aware these numbers are solely due to the fact that we’re all stuck at home with nothing but social media to keep us connected in real-time.

“Obviously, i wish the circumstances were different and I don’t expect that this exact spike in usage will sustain over a longer period of time” Zuckerberg expressed, “But in some areas, I think we are seeing an acceleration in pre-existing long term trends. Like the dramatic increase in online private social communication that is likely to continue.”

In response to so many users relying on Facebook’s services, the company rolled out a few new updates just last week including Messenger Rooms (a tile-view video chat feature that allows up to 50 people at once), virtual dates on Facebook Dating, and the ability to watch Instagram Live on desktop. 

It’ll certainly be interesting to see how many people will actually continue to take advantage of these services long after we’re set free from lockdown.