Is Twitter still popular in 2024?
Well, it was until it was rebranded into “X” on July 24th 2023.
2022 was a big year for Twitter, with Elon Musk becoming the new owner of the platform – Although some users weren’t happy with the takeover and decided to leave the platform – Twitter still remains one of the most popular social media platforms out there.
The truth is that Twitter lost around 32 million users since the takeover but still has managed to generate $4.4 billion in 2022.
Let’s dive in to what you need to know about Twitter after the X rebranding.
What Will I Learn?
This section provides a snapshot of key Twitter statistics:
On July 24th 2023 Twitter rebranded as “X” following its acquisition by Elon Musk. This rebranding signifies Musk’s vision for Twitter to evolve into an all-encompassing app offering a wide array of features and services beyond its original social media purpose.
Twitter has a very specific user base.
There are key demographics and users that are attracted to Twitter because of how the platform operates. Here is a breakdown of the average Twitter user.
Twitter has one of the highest differences in users by gender.
The platform is male-dominated with 68.1% of all Twitter users being male. Just 31.9% of Twitter users are female.
Gender | Percentage Of Users (%) |
---|---|
Male | 68.1% |
Female | 31.9% |
Other social media sites such as Instagram or LinkedIn have a much more equal user base in terms of gender.
For example, 48.4% of all Instagram users are female while 51.6% are male.
This is a much more equal balance between men and women.
Twitter users tend to be used by younger people.
While platforms like Snapchat and TikTok have been the most popular platforms for people under 18 years old, Twitter has done a good job at carving out its own user base.
They have maintained a unique platform that attracts certain age groups.
This is the breakdown of Twitter users by age group:
Age Group | Percentage Of Users (%) |
---|---|
13 to 17 | 6.6% |
18 to 24 | 17.1% |
25 to 34 | 38.5% |
35 to 49 | 20.7% |
50+ | 17.1% |
What this means is that 59.2% of users on Twitter are between 25 and 49 years old.
Another notable point is that Twitter has a strong user base in the 18 to 24 age group.
Twitter has strategically targeted young adults with the goal of keeping them on their platform as they get older.
So far these Twitter statistics suggest it’s working well.
The US has historically been the target country for Twitter since its launch in 2006.
The largest number of users is still in the US with almost 80 million. But Twitter has also managed to penetrate the international community with some surprising countries adopting the platform.
This is the full breakdown of Twitter users by country:
Ranking | Country | Number Of Users |
---|---|---|
1 | United States | 76.9 Million |
2 | Japan | 58.95 Million |
3 | India | 23.6 Million |
4 | Brazil | 19.05 Million |
5 | Indonesia | 18.45 Million |
6 | United Kingdom | 18.4 Million |
7 | Turkey | 16.1 Million |
8 | Saudi Arabia | 14.1 Million |
9 | Mexico | 13.9 Million |
10 | Thailand | 11.45 Million |
11 | Philippines | 10.5 Million |
12 | France | 10.0 Million |
13 | Spain | 8.75 Million |
14 | Canada | 7.9 Million |
15 | Germany | 7.75 Million |
Most of the growth on Twitter is now coming from the international community.
Twitter is the most popular social media network in Japan, used by 64.1% of all people in the country last year. This figure is expected to increase to 68.4% by 2023.
India is also a big adopter of Twitter with a user base now up to 23.6 million.
India is a good option for Twitter to penetrate further because of the size of the country.
Twitter was bolstered in India by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi using the platform regularly to share news and updates about the country. He currently has the 8th most followers on Twitter in the world.
The Asia Pacific region has been the biggest growth sector for Twitter.
Users have grown from 97.8 million in 2018 to 115.9 million in 2021.
It’s expected that the total Asia Pacific Twitter user base will be about 125 million by the end of 2023.
Judging from these statistics there seems to be a lot of room for growth in Twitter’s future!
The platform has managed to penetrate the global market, covering lots of different regions and continents. This is impressive for a comparatively smaller platform competing in a very saturated social media world.
Despite the controversial takeover, Twitter has remained popular.
Indeed, Twitter’s popularity was staging for years until the takeover pushed it under the spotlight.
As of January 2024, Twitter is ranked as the 12th most popular social media site in the world.
In 2023, Twitter was ranked as the 14th most popular social networking site worldwide so it managed to jump up 2 spot within a year.
Ranking | Platform | Number Of Monthly Active Users |
---|---|---|
1 | 3,049 Million | |
2 | Youtube | 2,491 Million |
3 | 2,000 Million | |
4 | 2,000 Million | |
5 | TikTok | 1,562 Million |
6 | 1,336 Million | |
7 | Messenger | 979 Million |
8 | Telegram | 800 Million |
9 | Douyin | 752 Million |
10 | Snapchat | 750 Million |
11 | Kuaishou | 685 Million |
12 | X/Twitter | 619 Million |
13 | Shina Weibo | 605 Million |
14 | 558 Million | |
15 | 482 Million |
What does this really mean?
Well to give you some perspective there is a total estimated 4.48 billion social media users worldwide. That means that Twitter has a total market share of about 8.85% of the world’s overall social media user base.
This is impressive for a social media network that has been around since 2006.
What about the United States?
The US has the largest number of Twitter users with 79.6 million users. They account for about 16.7% of all Twitter users worldwide.
But Twitter users in the United States are loyal and use the platform regularly:
These are encouraging Twitter stats that show the loyalty of users on the site.
Twitter also has 37 million monetizable daily active users in the US.
“Monetizable users” just mean that Twitter could show these people advertisements.
Twitter has a global monetizable daily active user audience of 206 million. That means the US accounts for about 18% of ALL monetizable daily active users.
But Twitter doesn’t have long to show ads to those users.
The average US adult spent just 6 minutes per day on Twitter in 2021.
This is significantly less than a platform like Facebook where the average adult spends about 38 minutes per day.
There are a lot of reasons to use Twitter.
One of the biggest advantages of Twitter is the speed at which information can be passed around. People use Twitter primarily to get news and for entertainment.
This is the breakdown of why people use Twitter today:
Reason | Percentage Of Users |
---|---|
To get news | 48% |
To get entertainment | 48% |
To keep in contact with friends and family | 34% |
To follow brands/companies | 33% |
To strengthen professional network | 14% |
Other reasons | 12% |
One of the Twitter statistics that stands out the most is that people use the platform to get news, just as much as they use it for fun.
Twitter has capitalised on this making it easy to follow the latest news and get updates when big news drops.
Another encouraging statistic for businesses is that 1 out of 3 Twitter users wants to follow brands and companies. Producing great tweets regularly should mean you can grow your Twitter audience consistently!
On the other hand, just 14% of Twitter users are there to network professionally.
With over 368 million monthly active users, building a huge Twitter following is not an easy task. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible…
These are the top 25 accounts with the most followers on Twitter right now:
Rank | Name | Twitter Handle | Followers (Millions) |
Country |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Elon Musk | @ElonMusk | 133.1 | United States |
2 | Barack Obama | @BarackObama | 133 | United States |
3 | Justin Bieber | @justinbieber | 113.4 | Canada |
4 | Katy Perry | @katyperry | 108.5 | United States |
5 | Rihanna | @rihanna | 108.2 | Barbados |
5 | Cristiano Ronaldo | @Cristiano | 108.1 | Portugal |
7 | Taylor Swift | @taylorswift13 | 92.5 | United States |
8 | Narendra Modi | @narendramodi | 87.4 | India |
9 | Donald Trump | @realDonaldTrump | 87.3 | United States |
10 | Lady Gaga | @ladygaga | 84.8 | United States |
11 | YouTube | @YouTube | 78.8 | United States |
12 | Ellen DeGeneres | @TheEllenShow | 76.6 | United States |
13 | Kim Kardashian | @KimKardashian | 75.1 | United States |
14 | NASA | @NASA | 71.9 | United States |
15 | Selena Gomez | @selenagomez | 67 | United States |
16 | 65.6 | United States | ||
17 | CNN Breaking News | @cnnbrk | 64.1 | United States |
18 | Justin Timberlake | @jtimberlake | 62.5 | United States |
19 | Bill Gates | @BillGates | 62.3 | United States |
20 | Neymar | @neymarjr | 61.9 | Brazil |
21 | CNN | @CNN | 61.9 | United States |
22 | Britney Spears | @britneyspears | 56.0 | United States |
23 | The New York Times | @nytimes | 54.9 | United States |
24 | Virat Kohhli | @imVkohli | 54.6 | India |
25 | Shakira | @shakira | 53.8 | Colombia |
Most of the top 25 accounts are people with just 6 accounts in total being a brand or company. In general Twitter accounts based on personal brands tend to do better.
But that doesn’t mean business accounts don’t do well.
You just need to work hard to create personal connections with your audience.
Twitter’s value has changed a lot over the last 15+ years.
As the social network has grown, so has the value.
Since its first round of funding in 2007, the value of Twitter has grown significantly.
At that time it was valued at just $220,000. But 4 years later in 2011 Twitter had shown huge growth reaching a huge valuation of $9.25 billion.
2 years later, Twitter decided to launch its IPO in 2013 and valued itself at $14.2 billion as it entered the public market.
Investors agreed with Twitter’s strong valuation and the share price soared by 73% above its initial offering price.
Twitter reached its highest market cap ever in February 2021, with a value of $61.31 billion. The stock has been pretty volatile since that period dropping to $29.18 billion in May 2022.
On October 2022, Twitter was valued and sold for $44 billion.
Twitter has 2 main sources of revenue:
Advertising makes up 89% of its total revenue and data licensing makes up about 11%.
Twitter has managed to grow revenue every year except in 2017, when revenue decreased by about $90 million.
Twitter made $4.4 billion in 2022.
This was an 11% decline year-on-year.
Here is the breakdown of Twitter’s revenue since 2010:
Year | Revenue (USD) |
---|---|
2010 | $28.2 Million |
2011 | $106.31 Million |
2012 | $316.93 Million |
2013 | $644.99 Million |
2014 | $1.40 Billion |
2015 | $2.22 Billion |
2016 | $2.53 Billion |
2017 | $2.44 Billion |
2018 | $3.02 Billion |
2019 | $3.46 Billion |
2020 | $3.72 Billion |
2021 | $5.08 Billion |
2022 | $4.4 Billion |
Twitter critics are fast to point out that Twitter hasn’t done nearly as much revenue as it could with the number of users they have.
This is despite the fact that Twitter has had consistent growth in revenue over the years.
The truth is…
The Twitter ads platform isn’t as good as Facebook or LinkedIn which has stopped marketers from making it part of their core digital marketing strategy.
Experts predict that if Twitter was able to create a better advertising platform its revenues would improve significantly.
It seems they have all the users and data to do it!
That’s it for the Twitter usage statistics!
The truth is that Twitter has a very solid user base and is consistently growing – both in users and revenue. And it looks like it could just be beginning!
Twitter seems to slowly be picking up traction outside of the US in the international market. They have also catered the platform to appeal to a younger user base that will allow them to have continued growth in the future.
As a personal fan of Twitter, I am excited to see how the platform grows!
But that’s enough from me. I want to hear from you.
Which Twitter user statistics from this list surprised you the most?
Want more statistics posts? Take a look at these blogs:
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typo in image. million instead of monthly.
Good catch! Thanks!