X Reports Latest Usage Insights To Mark the First Yr of Musk’s Takeover

Truthfully, it’s hard to know what precisely the status of Elon’s Musk’s “X” project currently is, attributable to conflicting reports about its performance.

Today marks a 12 months since Musk took ownership of Twitter, which he’s since re-branded to X, as a part of his long-held vision to create a payments-centered “every part app”, modeled on Chinese messaging platforms like WeChat, which have turn into essential connection tools for billions of users.

Musk believes that X can turn into the identical, but again, right away, it’s not entirely clear how X is developing towards that division.

Based on insights shared by X CEO Linda Yaccarino, every part’s going well, together with her latest blog post claiming that:

• X has over 500 million monthly lively users
• X users spend 7.8 billion lively minutes on X per day
• The common user spends greater than 32 minutes per day within the app
• Around 1.5 million recent accounts are being created day by day
• All major ad agencies have reversed their pause guidance against promoting on X
• 90 of X’s top 100 ad spenders from a 12 months ago have now resumed campaigns

But as noted, a lot of these stats are refuted by third-party evaluation, or perhaps a basic dig into X’s own reported numbers.

On lively users, based on data from SimilarWeb (published this week by Axios), X’s monthly lively user count has actually fallen by 14.8% globally, and by 17.8% within the U.S. year-over-year, for the month of September.

Last September, X had around 238 million every day lively users, which likely signifies that X was serving around 439 million monthly actives, based on average DAU to MAU variation across social apps. That might mean that, based on SimilarWeb’s indicators, X would currently be seeing around 378 million monthly lively users, not 500 million, as X claims.

Other third-party evaluation tells an identical tale. Data from Apptopia suggests that X currently has around 223 million monthly actives, and 121 million every day users, with the app seeing a drastic decline in each usage and downloads for the reason that rebrand to X in July.

But at the identical time, neither SimilarWeb nor Apptopia can access to the total data insights, with only X having complete oversight. Though their figures are generally indicative, which seems to suggest that X probably doesn’t have 500 million monthly users at this stage.

But we don’t know, because X is now a personal company, and as such, it’s not beholden to SEC rules around disclosure. So we only have X’s word, and X says it’s 500 million.

Make of that what you’ll.

By way of average time spent within the app per day, X itself has reported that it currently has 253 million every day actives, which might mean that if users are spending a cumulative 7.8 billion minutes per day within the app, as reported by Yaccarino, then the common time spent is definitely 30.8 minutes per user, not 32 minutes per day as Yaccarino claims.

If the common time spent per user is definitely 32 minutes per day, as X says, then that might mean that X is now serving 244 million every day actives, which might mean that it’s lost 7 million DAU since March.

And if that’s true, then those 1.5 million recent account sign-ups that the app’s seeing should not sticking around, because X must be adding 45 million recent users every month at that rate.

However it’s losing every day actives? Doesn’t seem to be an ideal indicator of success.

X also claims that each one of its major ad partners are coming back, but Ebiquity, which works with 70 of the world’s top 100 spending brands, claims that only two of its clients have resumed X ad spend. X has also began selling ad inventory through Google Ads to fill slots, which would seem to suggest that if these brands are returning, they’re spending loads less.

But again, we don’t know, because X is the just one with all the info, and the one technique of knowing of course how X goes can be its financial performance. Which may even remain unclear, till Musk and Co. determine to report those figures.

And which may only come when X is basically struggling, though it does seem somewhat indicative of an issue when the banks that loaned Elon Musk $13 billion for his acquisition are actually anticipating a major loss, as they struggle to offload the debt.

Fidelity, which itself owns a stake in the corporate, has cut X’s valuation by two-thirds, which implies the platform would currently be value around $15 million, versus the $44 billion Musk paid for it.

So while X’s team is attempting to paint a rosy picture, every external evaluation suggests otherwise. And perhaps they’re all flawed, nevertheless it does seem to be there’s something not quite on the nose concerning the data being shared.

On other elements, Yaccarino also says that every day, “150,000 recent long form posts are published, receiving greater than 3 billion impressions.”

Long-form content is a major departure from what Twitter had been, which hasn’t really gave the impression of an ideal fit, but perhaps there’s an audience for it, based on these figures. Though again, the detail is absent, with reference to what actually defines a long-form post on this context (i.e. is that any post that you might have to tap into to read, or is it only posts of a certain word count?).

Yaccarino also says that the common X Premium subscriber spends 3 times longer on the platform than a non-subscriber. Which is zero surprise in any respect, but that might also mean that this segment can be skewing the common time spent numbers, on aggregate.

By way of coming features, Yaccarino has said that full-screen, vertical video ads will soon be displayed inside X’s recent immersive playback mode, which is if you tap through on a video and scroll up to maintain seeing more. Yaccarino says that 100 million people now view video content inside this dedicated feed day by day, with Gen Z being probably the most lively consumers of this process.

Finally, Yaccarino says that its in-stream payments process is in development, with X being granted money transmitter licenses in several U.S. states. As we’ve reported, X has been granted payments licenses in some states, nevertheless it still has an extended technique to go in gaining full approval on this front.

I don’t know, it feels almost too skeptical to query every considered one of X’s claims, but again, this is predicated on external evaluation and reporting, at a broad scale, which contradicts Yaccarino’s various notes. Possibly they’re all flawed, perhaps X is definitely doing awesome, and perhaps Threads, which is now as much as 100 million users, is having no impact in any respect on X usage.

But that seems impossible, when every other mode of research and insight is reporting the identical.

We’ll discover, as X continues on its path.