It will lose 8 million in the US alone, the most of any country

December 13, 2022 (New York, NY) – Twitter will experience an exodus of users next year and beyond, as new owner Elon Musk makes fundamental changes to the platform. In its latest social network usage forecast, Insider Intelligence expects monthly Twitter users worldwide to drop nearly 4% in 2023 and another 5% in 2024. Our base assumption for this forecast is that technical issues and offensive content will drive away users.

Following essentially flat growth in 2022, amounting to 368.4 million monthly active users worldwide, Twitter’s user base will drop 3.9% in 2023 to 353.9 million users. This is the first time we’ve predicted a drop in worldwide Twitter users since we began tracking the company in 2008. In 2024, its global user base will then drop another 5.1% to 335.7 million.  That’s a loss of 32.7 million users in two years.

“There won’t be one catastrophic event that ends Twitter,” said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “Instead, users will start to leave the platform next year as they grow frustrated with technical issues and the proliferation of hateful or other unsavory content. Twitter’s skeleton staff, working around the clock, won’t be able to counteract the platform’s infrastructure and content moderation problems.”

Our downgraded usage projections follow a 40% cut in November to our ad revenue outlook for Twitter. We expect its ad business worldwide to grow just 4.9% to $4.67 billion this year. Our Q1 forecast had its revenues growing 25.1% to $5.58 billion, then jumping another 21.6% in 2023 and 16.0% in 2024. We now predict growth will be essentially flat for the next two years.

“Revenue and staffing losses have made it more difficult for Musk to ship new products that could increase usage and engagement,” Enberg said. “His primary focus in 2023 will be kickstarting Twitter’s revenue engine, after losing many of its biggest advertisers and a long tail of other advertisers who have been quietly quitting the platform. Musk can’t achieve his goal of overhauling Twitter’s monetization model to make it less reliant on advertising if he can’t generate revenue in the short term, and he is in the unenviable position of convincing advertisers to spend on a platform that has long been mired with monetization problems and isn’t essential to their media plans.”

US

Twitter will lose more users in the US than in any of the countries we track. It will lose 3.6 million in 2023, a drop of 6.3% over 2022. US monthly users will fall another 8.3% in 2024 to 50.5 million, the lowest level the platform has reached since 2014, as more marginal users stop using a platform that is likely to grow slower, more unstable, and less pleasant due to staffing cuts in infrastructure and content moderation.

“Twitter is a platform that thrives on news and controversy,” Enberg said. “The slight growth we expect for 2022 is a result of curious onlookers signing up for or using the platform more frequently to follow the Musk-Twitter saga. Their curiosity is already starting to fade, however, and decreased usage by those marginal users will exacerbate the monthly user decline in 2023.”

The drop in US users will come across all age groups we break out, but will be especially concentrated in the under-25 and over-45 age groups, where many current users of the platform are more marginal users that aren’t as loyal and are less willing to tolerate a degrading experience. In the more core user groups of Twitter, 25-34 and 35-44, there will also be a drop-off in users, but less severe, as a greater number of those users are more dedicated daily users.

UK

Twitter usage will start to fall significantly in the UK starting in 2023, dropping 5.1% to 13.4 million users. We expect monthly users will further decrease to 12.6 million in 2024, down 6.3%, reaching the lowest level since 2018.

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Similar to the US, the drop of Twitter users will come across all age groups with the strongest decline among the 18-24 and 45-54 age groups, who are not core Twitter users, especially under the currently disruptive changes, and are less loyal to the platform. For the more engaged users, the 25-34 and 35-44 age groups, there will also be drop-offs but to a lesser degree.

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“Nothing is certain in terms of the future of Twitter except that everything is uncertain,” Enberg said. “If Musk manages to stave off service issues and potential outages, fix the platform’s content moderation problems, and integrate new services into the app to drive revenue, he may be still able to reverse the course of the user drain.”

Please reach out if you would like our Twitter user numbers for any of the following countries or regions: Asia-Pacific, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Central & Eastern Europe, Russia, Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Middle East & Africa, North America, Canada, US, Western Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK.

Methodology

Insider Intelligence forecasts and estimates are based on our proprietary analysis, and include both quantitative and qualitative data curated from public companies, government agencies, research and media firms, and interviews with expert executives in relevant fields. We regularly re-evaluate available data to ensure our forecasts reflect the latest business and economic  developments and trends.

About Insider Intelligence

Insider Intelligence is a leading research provider focused on digital transformation. We empower professionals with actionable data, insights, and analysis to make informed decisions in a digital world. Formed as a merger of eMarketer and Business Insider Intelligence in 2020, we produce nearly 200 forecasts, 300 reports, 7,000 charts, and 1,500 newsletters across the Advertising, Media, and Marketing; Financial Services; Healthcare; and Retail and Ecommerce industries. Insider Intelligence is a division of Axel Springer S.E.