More than a year after Elon Musk acquired the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, data indicates the app’s user base is shrinking at an alarming rate.
Research firms Sensor Tower and Apptopia have found Twitter, now known as X, experiencing significant drops in daily active users on both the US and global levels. According to Sensor Tower, X had just 27 million daily active US mobile app users in February, an 18% decrease from a year earlier. Worldwide, the drop was 15% to 174 million daily users.
These declines stand in stark contrast to modest growth or relatively flat user numbers for other major social apps like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok over the same period. Sensor Tower analyst Abe Yousef labeled X’s user losses “the most material decline” compared to its peers.
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Potential drivers of the exodus cited by Yousef include user frustration with increased hate speech and vulgar content following X’s relaxed moderation policies, as well as overall technical issues and competition from video-focused apps.
Also read: Even Kevin O’Leary Has Given Up on X, Says It’s ‘A Cesspool’
While X claimed a higher global user number of 250 million daily actives, this still represents a drop from when Musk purchased the company and its 258 million “monetizable” daily users. On a monthly basis, X says it has 550 million users, up just 1.5% since July 2022.
Related: Elon Musk Pushed So Many People Away From Twitter That There Are At Least Two Studies About It
The declining user metrics have been accompanied by an exodus of major advertisers from the platform. Sensor Tower found 75 of the top 100 US advertisers on X last October had ceased spending on the app.
X’s revenue from subscriptions and other in-app purchases was about $9.5 million in February according to Sensor Tower, a fraction of the $1.18 billion in revenue Twitter reported in the second quarter of 2022 before Musk’s takeover.
The launch of Meta’s Threads app as a Twitter alternative has further exacerbated X’s troubles. Though its own user numbers remain modest so far, Threads saw 46 million US mobile app downloads in February versus just 2.9 million for X based on Apptopia data.
Musk has implored his remaining 177 million followers to promote X and urged new signups, saying “1.7 million people join X every day.” However, third-party data suggests X is struggling to attract and retain users in the face of reinvigorated competition and the impacts of Musk’s leadership changes.
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