Meta Avatars grew from a social-profile feature into a cross-platform identity system. Meta reported more than 1 billion avatars created by July 11, 2023, while its store expanded from three launch fashion brands to sports, entertainment, and creator-led collections. The figures below focus on the product’s documented rollout, customization options, and distribution through the company’s own announcements.
Contents
- Adoption and product timeline
- Where Meta Avatars appeared
- Customization and avatar design
- The Avatar Store and digital fashion
- Sports, entertainment, and creator collections
- Regional expansion and Japan
Adoption and product timeline
The clearest scale statistic is Meta’s own reported creation count. In its July 11, 2023 post, “Meta Avatar calls,” Meta said more than 1 billion Meta Avatars had been created to date. This is a cumulative creation figure, not a count of monthly active users, daily users, or unique people currently using an avatar. The announcement does not establish how many avatars remained in active use.
Meta first launched this iteration of its avatar system in 2021, according to “Customize Your Meta Avatar With New Body Shapes, Hair and Clothing.” The product then moved into commerce and broader identity expression:
- The Meta Avatars Store launched in June 2022, according to “Introducing the Meta Avatars Store.”
- The June 2022 store rollout was planned for Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, with VR described as the fourth planned surface in that launch wave.
- Meta’s June 2022 announcement promised more than a quintillion free-avatar combinations. The same post also explicitly described the available free options as already exceeding a quintillion combinations.
- Meta’s July 2023 announcement described avatar calling as a first-time rollout for Messenger and Instagram.
- The July 2023 post said Meta would continue testing and refining the feature over time, framing development as a long-term process rather than a one-off launch.
Together, these milestones show a product sequence: an avatar system launched in 2021, a digital clothing marketplace added in 2022, and live avatar communication introduced in selected messaging apps in 2023. The dates describe announcement and rollout timing; they should not be read as evidence that every feature became available to every user in every market on the same day.
Where Meta Avatars appeared
Meta’s announcements repeatedly described avatars as portable across its family of apps and devices. In the June 2022 store announcement, the company said 3D Avatars could be used beyond VR on four surfaces: Facebook, Messenger, Instagram Stories, and Instagram DMs. The same announcement said the store was designed to support customization across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and VR.
By July 2023, real-time avatar calling was available in two apps: Messenger and Instagram. The July announcement also specified two supported mobile operating systems, Android and iOS. That is a feature-availability statement, not a claim about the total number of devices or users who could access it.
Avatar stickers were distributed across several kinds of social activity. Meta said they could be shared in four content areas: Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, Reels, and Facebook comments. The same sticker feature worked in two types of one-to-one message threads, Messenger and Instagram. Meta also introduced multi-character social stickers involving two people: the avatar owner and a friend.
The July 2023 announcement described a live-selfie creation test running in two apps, Facebook and WhatsApp. Meta said that suggestion flow could generate an avatar option in seconds. This describes the speed of the suggested creation experience, not the time required to complete every customization choice.
The platform picture can be summarized as follows:
| Capability or placement | Documented count | Scope and date |
|---|---|---|
| Early non-VR surfaces | 4 | Facebook, Messenger, Instagram Stories, and Instagram DMs; June 2022 announcement |
| Apps for avatar calling | 2 | Messenger and Instagram; July 2023 announcement |
| Mobile operating systems for calling | 2 | Android and iOS; July 2023 announcement |
| Sticker content areas | 4 | Stories, Reels, and Facebook comments as specified by Meta; July 2023 announcement |
| Apps in the live-selfie test | 2 | Facebook and WhatsApp; July 2023 announcement |
Meta also said VR avatars were being standardized to match the look of avatars on four family apps: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. That statement points to visual consistency across the ecosystem, rather than a quantified measure of design similarity.
Customization and avatar design
The 2023 design update focused on visible parts of the avatar. “Customize Your Meta Avatar With New Body Shapes, Hair and Clothing” reported two new curvier body shapes. The same update improved avatar hair, clothing, and eyes across four presentation surfaces: stickers, profile pictures, cover photos, and other uses described in the announcement.
The store’s free customization system was unusually broad in Meta’s description. The June 2022 announcement said there were more than a quintillion combinations of free avatar options. Because this is a count of possible combinations, it should not be confused with the number of individual garments, hairstyles, facial features, or complete avatars actually created. It is also a company-reported design-space estimate rather than a usage statistic.
Meta’s Japan/APAC announcement gave another view of the system’s expressive range. It said avatars could reflect at least six interest areas in Japan: soccer, music, food, fashion, dance, and film. These categories describe examples of identity and interest signals that could be represented through avatar items; they do not measure the popularity of those interests.
The April 2023 PUMA update added seven avatar outfits. The looks began rolling out on May 1, 2023. Meta said the Avatar Store already included outfits from four other brands before PUMA: Madhappy, the NBA, Prada, and Thom Browne. In the same announcement, Meta described the store as having expanded beyond its earliest fashion partners into a wider set of branded options.
For readers interested in avatar design systems, the pattern is notable. Meta quantified both the breadth of possible free combinations and the size of selected branded drops, while separately reporting improvements to body shapes, hair, clothing, and eyes. Those measurements describe different layers of the product and should not be added together.
The Avatar Store and digital fashion
The Avatar Store launched in June 2022 with three paid fashion brands: Balenciaga, Prada, and Thom Browne, according to “Introducing the Meta Avatars Store.” The same three brands were named again in the store launch press post. The repetition confirms the launch lineup within Meta’s announcements, but it does not indicate the number of items each brand supplied.
Meta later added more labels and collections. In its July 2023 “Meta Avatar calls” announcement, the company said the update launched six Valentino outfits and one pair of Valentino Garavani VLogo Signature earrings. The Valentino collection referenced two signature design cues: Pink PP and Valentino Toile Iconographe. The launch arrived in summer 2023, and Meta described Valentino as another luxury-brand expansion beyond the initial launch brands.
The store’s product count therefore varied by collection format. One release was reported as seven PUMA outfits; another as six Valentino outfits plus one pair of earrings. These are release-level counts and do not provide a complete inventory of the store.
Meta’s Japanese page, “Meta、アバターストアを日本を含むアジア太平洋地域で導入,” explicitly named four paid clothing partners beyond free items: Prada, Thom Browne, Madhappy, and DRESSX. It also named one soccer-club outfit, Liverpool F.C., and two Netflix shows with avatar clothing: Squid Game and Stranger Things.
The launch and expansion figures are easiest to read as a sequence:
- June 2022: three initial high-fashion brands—Balenciaga, Prada, and Thom Browne.
- April 2023: seven PUMA outfits announced, with rollout beginning May 1, 2023.
- Summer 2023: six Valentino outfits and one pair of Valentino Garavani earrings.
- December 2022 Japan/APAC announcement: four named paid clothing partners beyond free items, plus Liverpool F.C. and two Netflix show tie-ins.
These figures cover named announcements, not an exhaustive count of all paid items or all store partners over time.
Sports, entertainment, and creator collections
Brand partnerships broadened Meta Avatars beyond general fashion. The April 2023 PUMA release supplied seven outfits, while the same announcement listed Madhappy, the NBA, Prada, and Thom Browne as four brands whose outfits had already appeared in the store.
Meta’s Naomi Osaka announcement, “New Meta Avatar Outfits From Naomi Osaka,” said the collection was available on four surfaces: Instagram, Messenger, Facebook, and VR. Osaka described herself as a four-time Grand Slam champion. The article said her brand name, Hana Kuma, translates to two words, “flower bear,” and identified three major inspirations: tennis, Japanese heritage, and Haitian heritage.
That announcement also listed five other major brand partners alongside Naomi Osaka: PUMA, Madhappy, the NBA, Prada, and Thom Browne. The partner count is specific to the announcement’s comparison, not a complete count of every Meta Avatar collaborator.
Liverpool FC supplied a more focused sports example. “Show Your Spirit With Liverpool FC Kits in the Meta Avatars Store” described two kits, home and away, plus two LFC-label lifestyle looks. The Liverpool merchandise launched across four surfaces—Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and later VR—and was available in seven markets: the United States, Canada, Mexico, Thailand, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
Meta said fans could represent Liverpool in the metaverse through avatar kits released in October 2022. The announcement’s seven-market figure is a geographic availability count for that drop, not a count of sales or users.
The collections illustrate three design directions: branded fashion, identity-led creator design, and team or entertainment affiliation. Their statistics are comparable as documented release attributes, but they do not support conclusions about which category was most popular.
Regional expansion and Japan
The Japan/APAC rollout added Japan to the Avatar Store launch footprint on December 12, 2022, according to Meta’s Japanese announcement. The same page provided earlier local milestones: 3D avatars had already been added to Instagram Stories in Japan in June 2022, and to direct messages in July 2022.
For Japan, Meta said avatar expression spanned five platforms or surfaces: Meta Quest, Instagram Stories, DMs, Facebook, and Messenger. This five-surface description differs from the four-surface groupings in other announcements because it includes Meta Quest and combines direct messages as a named surface. The categories should therefore be read in their original context, not merged into one universal platform total.
The Japanese page’s named options connected avatar design with five types of licensed or branded content: four paid clothing partners beyond free items, one soccer club, and two Netflix shows. It also said avatars could reflect at least six interest areas—soccer, music, food, fashion, dance, and film.
These regional facts make the product’s design scope clearer. Meta Avatars were presented not only as a personal appearance system but also as a way to express affiliations, entertainment preferences, sports support, and cultural references. The underlying announcements report availability and named examples; they do not quantify adoption by country, engagement by surface, or the commercial performance of individual collections.