In the second quarter of 2022, X (formerly Twitter) generated total advertising revenues of approximately one billion U.S. dollars, down from 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in the previous quarter. Advertising accounts for the vast majority of the social network's revenues, while data licensing and other revenue for the second quarter of 2022 amounted to 100 million U.S. dollars. X/Twitter experienced overall net losses of 270 million U.S. dollars during this quarter.

In 2022, X (formerly Twitter) generated 4.73 billion U.S. dollars in advertising revenue. This figure is expected to drop to 2.7 billion U.S. dollars by 2027. The social platform is responsible for roughly one percent of the global ad revenue.

Social network platform in transition

Established in 2006, California-based platform X (formerly known as Twitter) ranked among the most popular social networks worldwide by number of monthly users as of late 2023. The company has undergone a profound transformation after Elon Musk's acquisition in October 2022. After the billionaire bought the platform, advertisers and marketers have closely observed every change regarding its features and policies. Due to many contradictory developments at Twitter, industry professionals have become increasingly more cautious with their investments. A prominent example was IPG - one of the world's top five advertisers - advising its customers to temporarily abstain from putting money into the platform. Another big advertiser who has also ceased ad investment in Walmart.

Social media powerhouse: Facebook

In the meantime, nearly half of the responding marketing professionals named Facebook the most important social media platform for their business. The social network giant's revenue amounted to 114 billion dollars in 2022. Although the figure was roughly 60 percent of Google's ad revenue, Meta stood further ahead of X in terms of money earned through selling ad spaces.

In 2021, Twitter generated more than 4.5 billion U.S. dollars in advertising service revenues, up from 3.2 billion U.S. dollars in the previous year. Additionally, the micro-blogging platform produced around 571 million U.S. dollars in data licensing revenue, up from 508 million U.S. dollars in 2020.

In the most recently reported period, X (formerly Twitter) generated 89 percent of its revenue through advertising services, whilst 11 percent was generated via data licensing. In 2021, the micro-blogging platform generated over five billion U.S. dollars in worldwide revenue.

Advertising makes up 89% of its total revenue and data licensing makes up about 11%.

The US has historically been the target country for Twitter since its launch in 2006. This is the full breakdown of Twitter users by country.

These are the key Twitter user statistics that you need to know.

These Twitter user statistics will give you the complete story of where Twitter is at today and what the future looks like for the social media company.

This is the breakdown of Twitter users by age group.

The platform is male-dominated with 68.1% of all Twitter users being male. Just 31.9% of Twitter users are female.

How many people use X/Twitter?

As of the first quarter of 2019, X/Twitter averaged 330 million monthly active users, a decline from its all-time high of 336 MAU in the first quarter of 2018. As of the first quarter of 2019, the company switched its user reporting metric to monetizable daily active users (mDAU).

X/Twitter

X/Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service, enabling registered users to read and post short messages called tweets. X/Twitter messages are limited to 280 characters and users are also able to upload photos or short videos. Tweets are posted to a publicly available profile or can be sent as direct messages to other users.

Part of the social platform’s appeal is the ability of users to follow any other user with a public profile, enabling users to interact with celebrities who regularly post on the social media site. Currently, the most-followed person on Twitter is singer Katy Perry with more than 107 million followers. Twitter has also become an important communications channel for governments and heads of state – U.S. President Donald Trump was the most-followed world leader on Twitter, followed by Pope Francis and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Despite the widespread usage among the rich and famous, the decline in active users has not been impressing investors as the platform is largely reliant on delivering advertising to users in order to generate revenues. Twitter’s company revenue in 2018 amounted to three billion U.S. dollars, up from 2.44 billion in the preceding fiscal year. Twitter was only recently able to report a positive annual result for the first time, when the company generated 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in net income in 2018.

As of February 2024, Twitter is ranked as the 12h most popular social media site in the world. The platform currently has 436 million active monthly users.

With over 436 million monthly active users, building a huge Twitter following is not an easy task.

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.

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.

With roughly three billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2023, Facebook is the most used online social network worldwide. The platform surpassed two billion active users in the second quarter of 2017, taking just over 13 years to reach this milestone. In comparison, Meta-owned Instagram took 11.2 years, and Google’s YouTube took just over 14 years to achieve this landmark. As of January 2022, Facebook’s leading audience base was in India, with almost 330 million users whilst the United States ranked second with an approximate total of 179 million users. The platform also finds remarkable popularity in Indonesia and Brazil. Social Media usage in the United States In January 2021, Facebook was the platform on which users in the United States spent the most time per day. The average time spent on Facebook was 33 minutes, followed by TikTok with 32 minutes and Twitter with 31 daily minutes. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, all major social media platforms saw an increase in daily usage, which then either plateaued or decreased in 2021. At the end of 2021, over a quarter of all Facebook users in the United States belonged to the 25 to 34 year age group and 18.2 percent of users were in the 35 to 44 year age group. In general, Facebook users were more likely to be female. Meta Platforms Meta is Facebook’s recently renamed parent company and had a grand total of 3.59 billion core product users by the final quarter of 2021. Other Meta products include Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Oculus – Meta’s virtual reality subsidiary which produces VR headsets. In 2021, Meta's revenue amounted to 117 billion US dollars, up from around 86 billion U.S. dollars in the previous financial year.

Ethical cosmetics and beauty company Lush generated the largest portion of its revenue from its operations in the United Kingdom in 2023. This was followed by the brand’s retail activities in the United States, Canada, and Japan, where the number of Lush shops is almost as high as retail UK stores. Young shopper profile Lush manufactures and sells hand-made beauty, hair and skincare products. The brand is known for its policy of animal-free product testing. In the UK, while Lush’s shopper profile covers a wide range of demographics, young people still make up a large majority of Lush customers. Online without social In 2019, Lush made the surprising announcement that it was bringing its social media presence to an end. The company closed its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, yet revenue from online continued to soar, delivering increasing turnover from digital sales since 2016.

Sina’s Weibo, often referred to as Chinese Twitter, is one of the most influential social network platforms in China. In 2017, the Beijing-based microblogging site had more than 290 million registered users in China, accounting for one-fifth of the total population. As of the second quarter of 2019, the number of Weibo’s monthly active users across the world had already reached over 480 million.

The transformation of Weibo

While many internationally popular social media sites were blocked in China, Weibo was launched by the Chinese technology company Sina to provide micro-blogging services in 2009. Before Alibaba’s acquisition in 2013, the microblogging site reported over 46 million daily active users. To attract more, the social network decided to extend its 140-character restriction to two thousand in 2016. Although Weibo still shares some similar features with Twitter, the Chinese platform has evolved into a microblogging hybrid with Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, and YouTube. It has even launched an online game center to make its users stay longer on the platform. With these strategic changes, the company remains one of the most popular social media platforms in China. In 2018, around 42.3 percent of the Chinese online population used Sina’s Weibo.

Everyone is using Weibo

Chinese internet users, especially the Generation Z group, often use Weibo to discover the trendy brands and the latest promotions from key opinion leaders. Each day, there are around 130 million words and 1.5 million videos and live streaming published in the platform (321028). Many journalists, celebrities, and brands consider the microblogging site as one of the effective promotions and marketing channels in China. In 2018, over 70 percent of Sina’s 2.11 million U.S. dollars revenue was generated from the advertising and marketing on Weibo. Amid the booming live streaming and video advertising in China, there is still plenty of room for Weibo to grow.