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According to Statista, WhatsApp and Messenger had the largest number of monthly active users in the last two years (2015-16) while Twitter is slowly losing to its competitors.
Statista, a leading statics firm on the internet, has published the statistics on increase in a number of active users on various social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter over the last two years. Facebook-owned platforms were the most popular of all.
According to the statistics, the messaging apps WhatsApp and Messenger led the charts with an increase of over 500 million active users each in the last two years.
WhatsApp is a messaging app which allows users to send messages, voice notes, pictures, GIFs, videos, documents, group chats and make audio and video calls.
Messenger allows to send multimedia messages using filters & stickers, make audio & video calls, play instant games etc.
Facebook was in the third spot with 467 million active users in 2014-16. The social networking platform has introduced a number of updates over the years such as recently it added weather section, searching photos by contents using AI, updated Trending section, multiple instant articles in one post, ability to go live from desktop, live streaming, Live 360, Live Audio and much more.
Instagram, the popular photo-sharing, and social networking platform got the 4th position with over 300 million active users from 2014 to 2016. With the introduction of stories, the number of active users has increased rapidly.
Snapchat saw an increase of 87 million users but the figures are not exact as the company does not disclose the details. Snapchat added nearly 3 times as many daily active users as Twitter did monthly active users since the end of 2014. With the latest IPO, a lot of changes are expected in future.
Once a glorified app, Twitter is losing to its competitors. Twitter was the last one with an increase of 31 million users only. The online news and social media platform is trying to attract more users by introducing features such as live video, live 360, new explore tab etc., but its users base is not expanding much. Statista reports,
“Over the past two years, Twitter gained just 31 million active users, which is disappointing for a company trying to become a global platform for the exchange of ideas and information. It is even more disappointing though when considering how quickly competing platforms have grown in the same period of time.”
Twitter has a loyal and active community and it saw explosive growth in a couple of years after its inception. But it failed to attract users as compared to other apps.
