Picture Credit: Instagram
Indian men's cricket team captain Virat Kohli on Friday became the first Indian as well as the first from the continent of Asia to cross the 150 million followers’ landmark on social media platform Instagram. In the overall list, Kohli is the fourth sporting celebrity to breach this mark. The three others are all footballers - Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, Argentina's Lionel Messi and Brazil's Neymar.
It was the Manchester United forward Ronaldo who currently tops this followers chart with as many as 337 million followers alongside his name. While Messi has 260 million followers, Neymar is not too far away from Kohli with 160 million followers on the photo-blogging site.
Kohli had earlier become the first Asian to cross the 75 million followers mark on this social media giant. Notably, apart from Instagram, the Indian captain also has a huge fan-following on other social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Currently, Kohli is followed by 43.4 million followers on the micro-blogging website Twitter and by over 48 million followers on Facebook, who also owns Instagram.
Kohli rated India's most valuable celebrity with an estimated brand value of $237.7 million
Recently, Virat had beaten Bollywood stars like Akshay Kumar and Ranveer Singh to retain the top spot in India's most valuable celeb list. As per the Celebrity Brand Valuation Study 2022 by Duff & Phelps. Kohli was rated as the country's most valuable celebrity with an estimated brand value of $237.7 million.
The star India batter reportedly charged INR 5 crore per sponsored post on Instagram. In comparison, Ronaldo, who has the most followers among sportspersons, charges $1,604,000 (Rs 11.72 crore) per sponsored Instagram post.
Currently, Kohli is leading the Indian team in the five-match Test series against England at the United Kingdom. While the first Test match ended in a draw, India won the second Test at Lord's. However, the Three Lions came back to win the third Test in a dominant fashion. The fourth match is beautifully poised at The Oval with both teams giving it their all. Kohli scored his second successive half-century on this tour in the first innings of the Test but a wait for 71st international hundred from his bat continues.