Ronaldo most followed person on Instagram with 652 mln followers, beating Messi

Football legend Cristiano Ronaldo and star of Saudi Arabia’s club Al Nassr is the most followed person on Instagram with 652 million followers on the social media platform.

The Portuguese footballer routinely shares moments with his friends and family, training clips with his teammates in Saudi Arabia and brand collaborations. Each of these posts have millions of views and likes.

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The five-time Ballon d’Or winner earns about $43.43 million for each sponsored post on Instagram, according to a 2024 report from Hopper HQ, a social media scheduling and management tool. He is the face of brands like Nike, Clear and Binance, and is the brand ambassador of Talabat, a leading online food delivery platform in the Middle East.

Social media royalty

Ronaldo, widely regarded as the greatest player of all time, made history in September last year after becoming the first person to cross one billion followers across all of his social media platforms, including X, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.

The 39-year-old also launched his own YouTube channel ‘UR Cristano’ last year, and broke records by becoming the fastest-growing YouTube channel of all time, amassing over one million subscribers in less than 90 minutes.

Ronaldo has 74.8 million YouTube subscribers as of April 30. His channel contains videos with his kids, wife Georgina Rodriguez and interviews with friends. He also spoke about his time in Saudi Arabia in one of the videos and his experience adjusting to life in the Kingdom.

Lionel Messi follows suit

The Argentine footballing legend and Ronaldo’s archrival is second in the list, with 505 million followers on Instagram. Messi, who now plays for the American football club Inter Miami CF, shared the stage with Ronaldo for over a decade in one of the greatest sporting rivalries of all time.

Messi and Ronaldo are followed by American Singer Selena Gomez with 420 million followers on Instagram. Brazilian footballer Neymar Jr. ranks fourth with 229 million followers and France’s Kylian Mbappe holds the fifth place with 123 million followers.

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