Social Media Usage Germany 2026: User Numbers for DACH

Anyone researching the market size of social media in Germany ends up with 44 million or 64.7 million users, depending on the source. Both figures are documented. They simply do not measure the same thing. This article sets out the numbers for Germany, Austria and Switzerland and separates the types of survey that regularly slide into the same table in strategy presentations. As of August 2026.

Social media usage in Germany: two headline figures, two methods

In their country report, Kepios and DataReportal count 64.7 million social media users in Germany, 77.1% of the population, with data as of October 2025. The direction is what stands out: it is the first decline they report, down 800,000 accounts or 1.2% against the previous year. The previous edition still named 65.5 million identities (77.6%) for January 2025. DataReportal itself points out that the annual editions are not directly comparable because of base revisions; the 1.2% decline is DataReportal's own year-on-year change and not the difference between the two editions.

The methodologically strictest German source is a survey. The ARD/ZDF-Medienstudie 2025 finds that 63% of the population aged 14 and over use social media at least weekly, around 44 million people. Daily reach stands at 35%. Growth in this wave came to only 3 percentage points, after 8 percentage points in the previous wave. The basis is 2,512 respondents, with fieldwork from 28 January to 18 April 2025.

The two figures do not contradict each other. DataReportal counts accounts, the survey counts people aged 14 and over. Anyone with several profiles appears more than once in the DataReportal data. Anyone under 14 does not appear in the survey at all. Together they give a consistent picture: the German market is saturated, and growth no longer comes from new users but from shifts between platforms.

Ad reach, survey and MAU are three different types of figures

The most common mistake in channel comparisons is the mixed table: YouTube ad reach next to LinkedIn member numbers next to Instagram MAU from a corporate report. The result looks like a ranking, but it is not one.

Practical rule: only compare within a column. As soon as you move between columns, the method belongs in the footnote and the comparison in quotation marks.

Platform ranking in Germany by advertising reach

The following nine platform values all come from the same DataReportal survey for Germany, with data as of October 2025 and are therefore comparable with each other.

Three things here are worth reading closely. First, the Facebook decline of 11.5% within a year, which makes the question of the channel's remaining role in B2B concrete; the answer is in Facebook Marketing, X and Threads. Second, the LinkedIn jump of 20%, which only turns out that large because registered members are counted rather than activity. Third, TikTok with 23.7 million adults: the value excludes minors, so the real user base is higher, which the channel assessment in TikTok Marketing in DACH takes up.

One value we deliberately left out of the table. The reported Reddit ad reach of 29.3 million for Germany would put the platform in third place. DataReportal itself flags recurring data anomalies for this value, and in our assessment the estimate also includes logged-out visitors. It is not usable as a market size figure, which says nothing about the strategic role of the platform; that is covered by Reddit Marketing for Business.

What the survey data sees differently

Ask the same question in a survey and the ranking flips. According to the ARD/ZDF-Medienstudie 2025, Instagram is the most used platform with 40% weekly reach, followed by Facebook with 31% and TikTok with 20%. Among 14 to 29 year olds, TikTok reaches 50%. YouTube comes to 46% weekly usage according to the same study series.

The most important finding sits in a side note: Instagram is losing ground among younger users for the first time. The platform remains the broadest in the market, but its growth engine is stalling exactly where reach will come from in the coming years.

The fact that Facebook is second in the survey but sixth in advertising reach is not a contradiction. The survey counts people who use a platform at least weekly. Advertising reach counts accounts that the booking tool currently reports as reachable. Two measures, two rankings.

Austria: higher penetration, its own ranking

For Austria, DataReportal reports 7.30 million social media identities, 80.1% of the population, of which 6.55 million are aged 18 and over, with data as of January 2025. LinkedIn comes to 2.70 million members, and Instagram and Facebook are level at around 3.25 million advertising reach each. Penetration is therefore above the German figure.

The provider NapoleonCat reports considerably higher platform values for December 2025: Facebook 5.35 million, Instagram 3.85 million and LinkedIn 3.00 million. These are also ad tool estimates, only with a different reference date and different cleaning. The gap between the two sources shows how imprecise absolute platform figures are at country level. For Austria the rule is therefore: trends yes, point values with caution.

For young people the picture is clearer, because here people are surveyed. The Jugend-Internet-Monitor 2025 from Saferinternet.at names WhatsApp with 87%, YouTube with 80%, Snapchat with 74%, Instagram with 73% and TikTok with 72% as the most used services among 11 to 17 year olds. Facebook lost 8 percentage points in this group. Sample: 405 young people.

Switzerland: organisational data instead of user numbers

For Switzerland there is no user survey comparable to ARD/ZDF, but there is an organisational survey with a long track record. The Social Media Studie Schweiz 2026 by Bernet Relations and ZHAW finds that practically all Swiss companies and organisations use social media routinely and with a strategy. The most popular platform is LinkedIn, followed by Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. It is the ninth edition, with fieldwork in autumn 2025, published on 4 February 2026, and 96 organisations surveyed.

AI use was recorded for the first time. The study describes it as a fixed part of everyday work.

A second Swiss source supports the picture from the supply side: according to the ZHAW Content Marketing Studie 2025, social media is the most used content marketing instrument with 64.9% usage, while 42.3% of companies name the production of high-quality content as their central difficulty. The basis is 924 Swiss companies, surveyed in January 2025.

The consequence for channel selection therefore differs from Germany. LinkedIn is the B2B standard in Switzerland, and among the organisations surveyed it is at the same time the channel with the broadest usage. How far apart the three markets are in terms of content is covered by the DACH content strategy with its regional differences.

Social media as a news source

Part of the market size can be grasped through news usage. According to the German section of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025, produced by the Leibniz Institute for Media Research, social platforms are the most used online news source with 33%. Among 18 to 24 year olds, one in two regularly consumes news there, and 17% of this age group come into contact with news content exclusively via social media.

The counterpart for AI chatbots is telling: only 4% retrieve news weekly via generative AI, rising to 9 to 10% among younger users. Anyone arguing in 2026 that AI assistants have replaced social platforms as the entry point has no basis for that in the German data. The basis is the adult online population, with fieldwork in January 2025.

Source critique: which figure you may use for what

• Market size and population shares: ARD/ZDF-Medienstudie. Representative, people instead of accounts, clearly documented fieldwork. Drawback: no absolute platform figures.
• Channel planning and budget: DataReportal. Reflects what is actually bookable in the ad tools. Drawback: self-reporting by the platforms, secondary accounts, occasional revision jumps.
• Time values: never mix them. The ARD/ZDF-Medienstudie 2025 measures 30 minutes of social media use per day, while GWI reports 5 hours 19 minutes per week for Germany in the second quarter of 2025, which works out at around 46 minutes a day. GWI changed the methodology in the fourth quarter of 2024, so a year-on-year comparison is not possible.
• Platform figures from individual providers: values from service providers such as NapoleonCat are ad tool estimates and deviate from DataReportal. Usable for trends, not for point values.
• Conspicuous jumps: when a value jumps sharply within a year, in our experience the counting method should be checked first, not the market. The excluded Reddit value is the clearest example.

As a rule of thumb for presentations: every figure gets its source, its collection period and its type of figure directly next to it. That costs one line and prevents the whole slide from collapsing during the discussion.

What the figures mean for channel selection

The DACH figures describe a saturated market with clear redistribution: video and short form are growing, the classic feed is shrinking, LinkedIn is gaining registrations and, in the everyday work of Swiss organisations, priority. New reach no longer comes from more people joining, but from existing users distributing their time differently.

Market size alone is not enough for a concrete channel decision. It says where people are reachable, not where they respond to company content. Which platform carries the load in which case is settled by the individual analyses in the overview Social Media Platforms Compared.