Meta reports record World Cup traffic on WhatsApp, Instagram and Threads
Overview
Meta says WhatsApp handled more than 30 million messages per second during the July 19 World Cup final, an all-time platform record and 1.23 times the New Year's Eve 2026 peak.
In its engineering report, Meta also says Instagram recommendation traffic rose up to 80% week over week, and live video watch time grew 90% on Instagram and 242% on Facebook compared with the July baseline.
Meta says the largest traffic surges came during match breaks, with the end-of-regulation whistle producing the biggest peak.
Written by AI from the articles below · updated Oct 15, 2:59 PM ET
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- Engineering at MetaOfficialMeta reports record World Cup traffic across WhatsApp, Instagram and Threads
AIWhatsApp 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.
Heat trend
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