Virat Kohli becomes first Indian to reach 100 million followers on Instagram

NEW DELHI: Indian skipper Virat Kohli became the first cricketer to hit 100 million followers on Facebook-owned photo and video sharing social networking platform Instagram.

Kohli has joined Juventus striker Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Argentine forward Lionel Messi, Hollywood actor and former pro-wrestler Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, American singer-songwriter Beyonce, and Ariana Grande in the 100 million club.

Kohli is also the fourth most followed sportsperson on Instagram.

Ronaldo tops the chart with 265 million followers, while Barcelona captain Messi and Brazil’s Neymar stand second and third in the list with 186 million, 147 million followers respectively.

Kohli had earlier become the first Asian to reach 75 million followers on Instagram.

Speaking of cricketers, Virat Kohli has more than three times the followers of second-placed MS Dhoni (30.4 million).

Apart from Instagram, Kohli also has a massive fan-following on other social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. As of now he has 40.8 million followers on Twitter, while has over 36 million likes on Facebook.

Recently, Kohli had upstaged Bollywood stars Akshay Kumar and Ranveer to retain the top spot in India’s most-valuable celeb list. According to the Celebrity Brand Valuation Study 2020 by Duff & Phelps, the Indian skipper was reportedly crowned as India’s most valuable celebrity with a brand value of $237.7 million.

(THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS)