Like all of 2020, New Year’s Eve was different. There were fewer crowds celebrating in the streets around the world.
Instead, more people spent a cozy night at home looking back on a difficult year and hoping for brighter days ahead.
Despite so many being apart from friends and family due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people were still able to connect with each other the same way they’ve been connecting all year: through online video and audio calling, and in record numbers.
In 2020, people turned to technology to stay in touch and get things done in the face of social distancing and stay-at-home mandates, and video calling became arguably the most in-demand feature.
Facebook, saw surges in video chatting all year across Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.
New Year’s Eve is a historically busy night for Facebook services, but this year set new records.
- More than 1.4 billion voice and video calls were made on New Year’s Eve 2020 globally, the most ever calls in a single day on WhatsApp.
- WhatsApp calling increased over 50% compared to the same day last year.
Messenger
- People celebrated with effects in Messenger, and the top AR effect in the US was “2020 Fireworks.”
- New Year’s Eve 2020 was the biggest day ever for Messenger group video calls (3+ people) in the US, with nearly 2X more group video calls on NYE compared to the average day.
Instagram Live and Facebook Live
- There were more than 55 million live broadcasts across Facebook and Instagram globally on New Year’s Eve.
