The number of daily active users (DAU) is coming to a standstill for major social networking sites according to the data gathered for the latest quarter. Social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat has registered a decline in the number of daily users. Per the data, Snapchat reported a drop in DAU on a quarter-to-quarter basis which goes the same for Facebook especially with European Union users. On the contrary, Twitter reported a gradual decline too.
Experts have called the situation as ‘Social Peak’ or the growth of social media where there is no room to add more users now ‘GDPR’ introduced by European Union’s privacy law could be one of the reason. Further, Snapchat recently encountered a backlash from its users after it redesigned the app after which, it had to redesign the app again.
Another reason could be because more than 1 billion Chinese users have been blocked access to services such as Facebook and even if these social networking sites operate in China, these are watered-down version complying the various laws amended by the Chinese government.
In July, Facebook along with its swat of apps recorded DAU of 2.5 billion people where Instagram reported a total of 1 billion active accounts back in June but there’s one thing to remember, a member can have multiple accounts. When the figures for WhatsApp were released, it also showed a hike in the DAU.
According to the quarter-to-quarter reports by Facebook, it recorded a 1712 million monthly active users (MAU) in Q2 2016 while it reported a total of 2234 million MAU in Q2 2018. However, when quarter-to-quarter reports are scrutinized, one can easily see the breakup of MAU where North America has been flat since Q2 2016, however, there has been slight growth in other regions of the world indicating a social peak.
The same story follows when the reports are compared based on daily active users (DAU). it shows that a total of 1126 million people visited Facebook daily in Q2 2016 while the number grew to 1471 million in Q2 2018. Although it is a significant hike, the reports show DAU from North America is flat while Europe recorded a slight drop when compared by Q1 2018 and Q2 2018.
Twitter, one of the largest social networking site has recorded fairly flat MAU of 335 in Q2 2018 which dropped from 336 in Q1 2018 while it was the same in Q3 2018 and Q4 2018. Another app ‘Snapchat’ is fearing going flat as it recorded only a million more DAU in Q2 2018 compared to 81 million DAU in Q1 2018 in North America. For the rest of the world, it reported a shortfall of 1 million daily users in Q2 2018 when compared to the total 48 million users in Q1 2018. As of now, Facebook with its own Facebook app, Instagram, and WhatsApp is at the epitome of total users and active users while others are getting stagnant.