If you spent any length of time on social media or kept up with some kind of financial news source, you will have undoubtedly encountered terms like “1K,” “1M,” and “1B.” These short forms allow expression of big values in concise and readable form.
“1K” = 1,000 This is the value of 1K. The value of K is derived from the Greek “kilo,” meaning a thousand, and it is mostly used as a measure of follower numbers, likes, and even comments. An example: “20K followers”-20,000 people like the account.
“1M” means 1,000,000. The “M” is short for “mega,” which means a million. It’s often used in social media and finance, too: a company that has “5M” in revenue has five million dollars, and a post that has “3M views” has been viewed three million times.
A short form for one billion is one billion (1,000,000,000). On social media, a video post going viral could gain “1B views,” or in finance, it could indicate massive revenue figures such as “1B in profits.”
These abbreviations work best when concision is important, like in the digital world. This can easily present size without having to write out long digits to an audience that cuts across several platforms.