Meta reports record World Cup traffic across WhatsApp, Instagram and Threads
Original title2026 World Cup: Breaking Records, Spiky Charts and Reliability at Scale
AISummary
WhatsApp handled more than 30 million messages per second during the July 19 final, an all-time platform record and 1.23x the New Year's Eve 2026 peak.
Instagram recommendation traffic rose up to 80% week over week, and live video watch time grew 90% on Instagram and 242% on Facebook versus the July baseline.
Meta says the tournament's largest traffic surges came during breaks, with the end-of-regulation whistle producing the biggest peak.
Source: Engineering at Meta · engineering.fb.comPublished · added here