Why Twitter Could Lose Up To 32 Million Users In The Next Two Years

Is Twitter doing well after Elon Musk took control of the site earlier this year? Well, we don't really know at this point. While it may be too soon to judge the impact the regime change has had on the social media platform since Musk took over, there is no denying that we have been receiving conflicting reports regarding the same.  Soon after Musk took over the company, he repeatedly claimed that engagement levels on Twitter are at an all-time high. Unfortunately, because Twitter no longer publishes monthly active user data as it once used to, we are left with no option but to take Musk's claim at face value. At least a handful of independent reports do, however, concur with Musk's claims. Data from Social Media Today, for example, indicate a 44% surge in monthly active users post-acquisition.

At the same time, it is undeniable that many people chose to leave Twitter soon after Musk took control of the social media platform. Interestingly, a leaked internal Twitter document accessed by Reuters before Elon's takeover reveals that the company was already struggling to retain its most active users. Musk's takeover may have simply accelerated that process. 

It is also too early to judge the impact of these "heavy tweeters" leaving the platform, given that they accounted for less than 10% of the company's monthly overall users. It is also unclear at this point if Musk is simply extrapolating the increased engagement on his Twitter account to the entirety of the company. According to Axios, engagement on Musk's Twitter account has significantly increased since he took over the company.

While Musk's claims about engagement levels on Twitter reaching all-time highs could actually be true, it is unclear if the company could sustain these numbers in the long run. In fact, a new report by market research firm Insider Intelligence claims that the next two years could see Twitter lose more than 30 million of its global monthly users.

Could this really be the beginning of the end for Twitter?

Principal Analyst @jasmineaenberg discusses consumer sentiment, advertising outlooks, and realistic alternatives on today's podcast.

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The report claims that most Twitter users will "start to leave the platform" after increasingly getting frustrated over technical issues the platform may continue to face. In addition, the firm claims that Twitter's reduced "skeleton" workforce will not be able to fix sitewide issues in time, thereby leading to user fatigue. Finally, the report also asserts that several users will leave the platform following the increased proliferation of hateful content on Twitter.

The report claims that a sizable majority of these Twitter deserters will come from the U.S. — which continues to be the biggest market for the country. More than 8.2 million Twitter users could leave the platform from the U.S. alone (Via The Guardian). The report forecasts that the total number of Twitter users in the U.S. could decline to 50.5 million before the end of 2024. 

Twitter could also lose up to 1.6 million users in the U.K. during the same period. By the end of 2024, the number of Twitter users in the U.K. could decline to 12.6 million as opposed to the current figure of 14.1 million users. The rest of the decline in active user numbers will come from the rest of the world. The report goes on to add that a majority of these Twitter deserters would belong to the under-25 and over-45 age groups — an age group that the report claims will be less tolerant of Twitter's controversial moderation policies.