Usage of Elon Musk's X is 'down by every measure' one year after his takeover
- Use of X on both iOS and Android is down by 17.8% compared to last year, according to SimilarWeb.
- The latest usage report echoes previous third-party estimates.
Just over a year ago, Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. The past 12 months have been a bumpy ride for the platform, now called X, and a report on its usage stats show it trending in the wrong direction.
In the US, people's use of X on Android and iOS devices was 17.8% lower year over year, based on a measurement of monthly active users from web analytics company SimilarWeb titled "One Year Into Musk's Ownership, X (Twitter) Down By Every Measure." Traffic to twitter.com via web browser is lower in the US by 11.6% and 7% globally year over year, according to the report.
And use of X's mobile app has also fallen in the US, coming in 12.8% lower during the first nine months of 2023, compared to the first nine months of 2022, according to SimilarWeb's data. Downloads of the X app also declined 38% worldwide and dropped by 57% in the US between October 2022 and September 2023, according to data from Sensor Tower reported by Axios.
These latest usage estimates echo Insider's previous reporting in September on X use and downloads decreasing since Musk's takeover. Data from app-tracking firm Apptopia indicated that traffic to Twitter.com was 10% lower worldwide and 15% lower in the US in August 2023 compared to data from the past year.
There is one stat in SimilarWeb's October report that should make Musk happy — the company estimates traffic to his X profile and posts was up 96% year-over-year in September.
Meanwhile, Musk's platform isn't worth nearly as much as when he bought it, at least according to the valuation outlined in a recent employee stock program first reported by Fortune. X reportedly offered employees restricted stock units at a share price of $45, valuing the company at around $19 billion — or less than 50% of what Musk paid for.
X hasn't commented on SimilarWeb's report (the company sent Insider an automated message when we reached out for comment ahead of publication), but CEO Linda Yaccarino attempted to paint a rosier picture in an October 27 blog post titled "One year in, the future of X is bright."
Yaccarino wrote that there are over 7.8 billion active minutes on X per day, with the average user spending 32 minutes on the platform per day. She also said that there are half a billion monthly users and an average of 1.5 million sign-ups a day.
However, daily active users on X are actually down by 16%, according to data from Sensor Tower that was reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Despite a turbulent first year, Musk has big ambitions for the platform. He wants X to be the "everything app," similar to the Chinese app WeChat.
Insider's Kali Hays recently reported that Musk said in an all-hands meeting that he wants to bring a dating feature to X and wants a fully functional online dating platform by 2024. In the same meeting, Musk said that he wants people to be able to use X for banking and money transfers by 2024, The Verge first reported.
Most recently, the X app introduced the option to hold video and voice calls on X.