Social media has become an integral part of the Internet, and it’s no different in India than it is anywhere else. The digital landscape in India is evolving, and social media use in India follows suit with every small change. Social media have come to play an increasingly large role in the lives of Indians, from their relationships to their careers to the ways they spend their free time. Social media in India has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, with more users logging on every day to share their experiences and thoughts with the world, build their personal brands, and learn about others through content shared by them or their peers.

WhatsApp is the most popular messenger app in India with around 534.30 active users. Meta-owned WhatsApp has 81.20% of the country’s total internet users. The second most popular on the list is Telegram (374.40 million users), with 56.90% penetration. The third is Facebook Messenger (324.39 million users), which is really popular among teenagers, has 49.30% users. Fourth in the list of 2022 social media chat apps is Snapchat with 42.90% users.

The average Indian social media user spends 17 hours on the platforms each week. On average, Indian users spend 2.4 hours on social media a day (slightly below the global average of 2.5 hours a day). Media consumers in India spent as many as 108 minutes per day on average on YouTube, making it the most popular online media. Meanwhile, the short video format app TikTok had the least frequent consumption with users spending a little over 20 minutes on the platform per day. Indians spend about 2% of their time on Snapchat.