Each year SensorTower releases the list of app download rankings and this year, in the list released in May 2020, Facebook makes it to the top, followed by TikTok. Facebook continues to be the most popular social media app while TikTok and Snapchat also attract a number of Social Media Followers.
Social media popularity high as ever before shows that concerns regarding privacy and misinformation have not discouraged social media users from continuing to use these platforms. Social media are as a man as ever before, if not more.
However, this question has often been raised: “Haven’t the reported shown that people are using Facebook less than they have in the past?”
Facebook Users Past Years:
It is indeed true that studies have shown the decline in the number of active Facebook users over the past several years and that its use is decreasing but assuming that new users are not increasing would be wrong.
Facebook’s quarterly reports have indeed proven that although overall users have decreased to some extent, Facebook has persisted in its growth. What actually seems to be happening is that Facebook users have been increasing; these users seem to spend less time than they used to before on Facebook. This would explain the increase in the Facebook audience that is seen in the SensorTower report.
This report also shows exactly where these new users are coming from and what is causing this rise. It claims:
“The markets with the newest Facebook installs during this period were India at 24%of total downloads, followed by Indonesia at 12% and Brazil at 8%.”
This is in accordance with what the other reports have to say on this matter, that the increase in users is actually from an extension to new markets whereas the decline in users is from countries where this social media app is well-established, like North America and Europe.
User counts however differ from the time users spend on Facebook. Despite the evident increase in popularity among social media users, the average time spent per person on this platform is decreasing.
This trend seems to be identified a little later than should have been. Facebook has also declared that it will very soon replace quarterly reports with reports on user counts its “Family of Apps” this will shift the current focus on Facebook to the focus on social media apps altogether.
This might be the case but Facebook being at the very top of the list is not that unexpected after all. The continuing fame and high user counts of TikTok and the persistence of the fame of Snapchat might come as more surprising. The continuing fame of TikTok is all the more surprising because of the notoriety it faced eight months ago and the fact that despite that it retained its popularity. It is about time TikTok is looked upon as having a potential for marketing.
Another surprising result is the high user count of the video app Likee. SensorTower data shows that Likee has over 200 million uses across the globe, although it can be argued that this platform is often used for its editing options to refine posts for other social media apps. It may however be another important consideration.
Rodney S. Gibson
