Facebook hits 2 billion global users

As speculation grows momentum that Facebook will eventually enter the music streaming space, the world’s most influential social media network has reached a new milestone.

Its CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced it now has hit the 2 billion global user mark. That’s 27% of the world’s population. 

"We’re making progress connecting the world, and now let’s bring the world closer together," he wrote in a post. “It’s an honor to be on this journey with you.”

Each day, 175 million people use the Love reaction on the site, and an average of 800 million hit the Like button. 

Founded in Menlo Park, California, in 2004, Facebook reached the 1 billion mark in October 2012.

In the last four years and 9 months, it has been adding 580,000 new users per day to reach its latest achievement.

Analysts believe that Facebook could easily overturn the Sony/Universal-owned Vevo if it gets into music streaming.

It has been working on a broad licensing arrangement with the music industry that allows Facebook users to post videos to accompany songs.

Facebook is also looking at developing original streaming TV shows to take on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

The company is working on strategies to reduce violent, hateful and misleading content uploaded by users on the platform. It has recently been under fire for multiple incidents where users have broadcast violent acts over the Facebook Live function.

Can Facebook grow any more?

Sure, says Zuckerberg, whose personal fortune is estimated at $65 billion.

His contention is that the world’s population is 7.5 billion, which is a lot more people for his company to sign up. There are 3.7 billion internet users; 730 million of these are in China, where Facebook is banned.

"What we really care about is being able to connect everyone. So two billion, there wasn’t as much fanfare around it," he had told USA Today. "We still haven’t connected everyone."

Zuckerberg had also suggested Facebook could fill the vacuum left by the decline of those kind of traditional communities that church groups had effectively done. 

YouTube recently announced it had 1.5 billion monthly users. Instagram has 700 million, and Twitter claims 328 million.