The ITTF claim that an accumulative audience of one billion people watched their key events this year, including the World Table Tennis Championships, World Cups and World Tour Platinum tournaments.

More than one million users reportedly tuned into the ITTF's official online streaming platform, itTV, attracting a diverse audience from countries such as Germany, France, Britain, United States, Brazil, Japan and South Korea.

Approximately 1.2 billion impressions were registered on the ITTF's social media channels, including more than 550 million on YouTube, 300 million on the Chinese platform Weibo and 200 million on Facebook. 

The growth rates of social media followers have rapidly increased, with Twitter's increasing by 37 per cent, Instagram by 41 per cent and YouTube by 48 per cent.

Videos have been significantly popular on ITTF's social media, with 155 million views across their platforms.

The most popular video on YouTube was teenager Tomokazu Harimoto of Japan defeating table tennis legend Ma Long of China at the Japan Open, which has the equivalent of 11 years of viewing time.

The ITTF's official website hit 40 million page views, a 40 per cent increase on last year.

The organisation will now be hoping to continue the high numbers in 2019, with the World Championships taking place in Budapest in April and the European Championships held in Nantes in September.

Table tennis will also feature at the European Games in Minsk in June and at the Pan American Games in Lima in August.