Meta added the Reels feature to Instagram in August 2020. The service, which was launched as a copycat of TikTok, did not generate any revenue at the time. However, it is now a platform that generates revenue on par with Coca-Cola and Nike, journalist Meghan Brewsky wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

The company has announced plans to make Reels more widespread in 2026. Under this, a feature that allows viewing Instagram Reels on TV is being developed. Just a few weeks ago, Meta started testing its service on Amazon Fire TV devices. The company has stated that it is preparing to bring Reels to TV after many users found that they were watching Reels by mirroring their mobile screens on TV.

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that revenue from Instagram and Facebook Reels had exceeded $50 billion annually during the company's financial statements in October. According to analysts, YouTube is expected to earn about $46 billion from advertising this year. Research firm eMarketer has projected TikTok's revenue to be $17 billion.

Zuckerberg attributed the success of Reels to the company's 'AI recommendation system'. According to him, the system helps users see high-quality and relevant content. ‘Video is the best thing on Facebook and Instagram, it’s the brightest spot,’ Zuckerberg said, ‘People are spending 30 percent more time watching videos on Instagram than they did last year.’ Peter Kafka, a senior journalist at Business Insider, analyzed that while companies like Meta earn billions of dollars annually from advertising on

reels, creators who constantly work hard to make videos are not getting their fair share. According to him, the platforms themselves keep a large part of the income generated from the labor of content creators. ‘Platforms are building their empires from the labor of creators,’ he wrote, ‘It’s hard to make $50 billion a year doing anything anywhere in the world.’ But building a $50 billion empire using content created by others, and doing so almost for free, is no small feat.’

Things weren’t so good for Meta until a few years ago. At the time, Meta’s internal research showed that Instagram was struggling to emulate TikTok. As of 2022, Instagram users were spending only one-tenth of the time on Reels as they did on TikTok, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

The first challenge, Instagram’s vice president of product, Tessa Lyons, told The Wall Street Journal that the first challenge was how to incorporate short videos on a photo-centric platform. Then, another challenge was to make sure that users could find Reels even from accounts they didn’t follow. Previously, Instagram’s algorithm was based on a ‘following graph’. It mainly featured posts from friends, celebrities, or creators that the user followed. TikTok turned this concept on its head. It showed videos from accounts that the user did not follow, and developed a system to understand interest based on how much time was spent on each video.