Meta reels hits $50B revenue, surpassing YouTube: The secret behind its rise

Meta reels surpassed YouTube after fetching $50 billion annual run rate in October earnings as announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, highlighting the progress the company would make in revenue generation in the next 12 months.

On the contrary, as per analysts’ expectations, YouTube is set to bring in $46 billion as revenue this year and TikTok will bring in $17 billion, as estimated by the research firm eMarketer.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a $50 billion annual rate will place its revenue potential on par with global giants like Nike and Coca-Cola as the Facebook parent company is planning to expand to more screens in 2026.

According to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower’s estimates, on average people spend 27 minutes a day on Instagram reels. The users of YouTube Shorts spend 21 minutes on the platform.

Secret behind its rise

CEO Mark Zuckerberg credits high-quality AI recommendation systems for the unprecedented rise in reels’ popularity. Based on these systems, the company has been successful in delivering higher quality and more relevant content on both Facebook and Instagram.

“Video is a particular bright spot,” Zuckerberg said, citing that people were spending 30 percent more time watching videos on Instagram than they did the previous year.

Graph evolution is another feature which helps Meta to reach the pinnacle of success, surpassing other tech firms.

Instagram successfully shifted from a following graph which showed content from followed accounts to an interest-based discovery engine, helping to identify users’ interest based on viewing searches and habits.

Earlier in April, Instagram introduced a feature called Blend, allowing the users to generate custom feeds of videos based on the user and his or her friends’ algorithms.

Another feature, launched last month, allows users to control their content by tuning their algorithm.

Expansion strategy for 2026

The company has announced its expansion strategy by launching Instagram for TV. Meta is testing reels on Amazon Fire TV in the US, aiming to capture the market where YouTube currently dominates.