Are you addicted to social networking and wondering who's behind your favorite platform? Whether it's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Twitter, the web giants are pulling the strings! We invite you to discover to which GAFAM social networks belong in the world.
But who are the GAFAM ? This term refers to the five Titans of tech, namely : Google, Apple, Facebook (now Meta), Amazon and Microsoft. In this article, we'll take a look at which GAFAM owns :
- 💬 Messenger
- ▶️ Youtube
- 👾 Twitch
- 🎶 TikTok
- 🕊️ X (Twitter)
- 👻 Snapchat
Which GAFAMs own your favorite social networks?
The GAFAM have become digital giants thanks in part to strategic investments. They know how to spot the golden goose and bet on it! So it's no surprise that each of these "Big Five" manages at least one of the world's most widely used social networks. But who owns what? We tell you all about it!
Which GAFAM owns LinkedIn?
Launched in 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Allen Blue, LinkedIn is the largest professional social network in the world. The platform has become a must-have for finding and/or offering work. Companies, employees, recruiters and freelancers - everyone is on LinkedIn!
LinkedIn has been acquired in June 2016 by Microsoft for $26.2 billion. Since then, the site has continued to break all records. LinkedIn in figures? Here's how it looks:
- 💼 Moreone billion users around the world
- 💼 Almost 33 million active members in France
- 💼 More 67 million companies registered on the platform
- 💼 140 job offers posted every second
- 💼 6 people hired every minute
- 💼 Almost 16 billion in revenues in 2022!
Which GAFAMs own Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger?
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger are owned by a single GAFAM: Meta (formerly Facebook). The adventure began in 2004, when Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg founded The Facebook with several fellow students.
The small project quickly grew into a thriving empire and Facebook took over two other social networking giants in 2012 and 2014. The company acquires Instagram and WhatsApp, respectively for the princely sum of $1 billion and around $20 billion.
The company Facebook becomes Meta at the end of 2021, while the social network keeps the name. Here are the numbers to remember about the four social networks of the GAFAM with the blue logo:
- 💙 More 3 billion monthly active users in the world
- 💙 35 million active users in France
- 💙 $164 billion in revenues by 2024 (Meta)
- 📸 About 2 billion monthly users in the world
- 📸 Almost 24 million active users in France
- 📸 Nearly 95 million photos and videos posted every day
- 📸 71 billion dollars in revenues in 2024
- 🟢 2 billion monthly active users in the world
- 🟢 24 million monthly users in France
- 🟢 100 billion messages sent daily!
- 🟢 8.7 billion in sales by 2023
Messenger
- 💬 More than 1 billion users worldwide
- 💬 Around 20 billion messages exchanged every month
- 💬 Nearly 17 billion photos shared monthly
- 💬 Over 400 million users use video chat every month
Which GAFAM owns YouTube?
The leading online video platform, YouTube was created in 2005 by three former PayPal employees: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. Success was immediate, with thousands of users in less than a year! It didn't take long for the site to attract the attention of a web giant: Google bought YouTube in 2006.
Google paid 1.65 billion dollars to get his hands on YouTube and its incredible potential. Since then, the platform has established itself as number 1 in video content sharing. YouTube is :
- ▶️ More 36 billion in revenues in 2024
- ▶️ 2.53 billion monthly active users around the world
- ▶️ More than 50 million monthly active users in France
- ▶️ About 50 billion views per day in the world
- ▶️ More than 720,000 hours of video published every day
- ▶️ More than a billion hours of content viewed every day!
Which GAFAM owns Twitch?
In 2011, the launch of Twitch delighted gamers and video game enthusiasts. The platform quickly gathered a global community of enthusiasts by enabling them to broadcast/watch live games. 2014, Amazon has bought Twitch for $970 million.
Since then, the video streaming service has expanded to include more features and a greater diversity of content (art, music, sports, cooking sessions...). Twitch is also the platform of records!
- 👾 More 240 million active users monthly
- 👾 Around 15 million active users in France
- 👾 More 7 million channels broadcast live per month
- 👾 35 million visitors online every day
- 👾 Almost 2 billion hours viewed in January 2025
- 👾 2.4 million simultaneous viewers on average
- 👾 3 billion in sales in 2023
Which GAFAM owns TikTok?
Founded in 2016, but launched internationally in 2017, TikTok has become a social networking giant in record time. The platform has managed to surpass billion users in less than five years.
TikTok's potential is enormous, yet no GAFAM has got its hands on the app. TikTok is owned by Chinese giant ByteDance the company behind its creation, and has no intention of letting go of its golden goose any time soon. Not surprising, given the platform's success. The proof is in the numbers!
- 🎶 Almost 2 billion active members in the world
- 🎶 23 million users in France
- 🎶 About 16 billion in revenues
- 🎶 More than $1 billion spent on TikTok in the last quarter of 2024!
- 🎶 Users spend more than 35 hours per month on the application
Which GAFAM does X (Twitter) belong to?
In 2006, Twitter entered the world of networking by focusing on microblogging. The platform was an immediate success, attracting 500 million users in just six years. Founded by a group of entrepreneurs, including the visionary Biz Stone, Twitter is bought by Elon Musk in 2022.
The latter paid the princely sum of 44 billion dollars to get Twitter, which then becomes X in 2023. The platform is therefore not owned by any GAFAM, but Elon Musk's wealth and influence guarantee it reliable, sustainable resources to keep its momentum going. X in figures:
- 🕊️ More 580 million active users in the world
- 🕊️ 6 million daily users in France (2024)
- 🕊️ Almost 170 million subscribers on Elon Musk's account!
- 🕊️ 3.4 billion in revenues by 2023
Which GAFAM owns Snapchat?
Founded in 2011 by three Stanford students (Reggie Brown, Bobby Murphy and Evan Spiegel), Snapchat is a social network that is not owned by any GAFAM. Its creators chose to set up their own company, Snap Inc. to develop the platform without constraints.
Several giants have tried to get their hands on the latter, but without success: Facebook in 2013, which offered to buy Snapchat for $3 billion, but also Google with an offer of $4 billion. Snapchat preferred to go it alone! Here are the platform's key figures:
- 👻 750 million users per month in the world
- 👻 More than 450 million daily active subscribers
- 👻 Almost 28 million users in France
- 👻 $1.6 billion in revenues by 2024
Apple is therefore the only GAFAM not to have acquired a social network. Apple prefers to invest its money in software, streaming, augmented reality and artificial intelligence.
Which social network do you use the most? What do you think of the GAFAM behind your favorite platform? Tell us all about it in the comments!
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