Digital 2023 July Global Statshot

Report
If you thought digital growth was starting to settle into more predictable patterns, prepare
yourself for some surprises.

Our new Digital 2023 July Global Statshot Report – published in partnership between We
Are Social and Meltwater – reveals a wealth of important headlines and trends, including:

• A big new milestone for social media use

• Concerning trends relating to the digital gender gap
• The adoption of AI technologies by everyday internet users
• The rapid growth of Threads
• Changes in how the world accesses news content
• A new top ranking for India
• The surprising truth about gaming amongst older generations
• The ongoing confusion at Twitter

That’s just a brief taster of the insights you’ll find in the full report though, which is packed
with 300+ slides exploring what people are really doing on the internet, social media, mobile
devices, and online shopping platforms.

And given the importance of some of the latest trends and stories, we’ve produced an “extra
large” Statshot this quarter, which includes additional insights into social media use and a
whole section on digital news trends.

The definitive source of digital data

In addition to thanking We Are Social and Meltwater for making these reports possible, I’d
also like to offer my heartfelt thanks our wonderful data partners, without whom the Global
Digital Reports series would be a lot less informative:

• GWI
• Statista
• data.ai
• Semrush
• GSMA Intelligence
• Similarweb
• Ookla
• Skai
• Locowise
• SocialInsider
⚠️ Important advisory: significant changes

Before we begin this quarter’s analysis, please note that there have been some important
changes to the source data that we include in the Global Digital Reports series over recent
weeks:

• As we highlighted last quarter, GWI revised its methodology starting with its Q4 2022
wave of research. As a result, please beware of comparing figures in this quarter’s
report with data published in previous reports in this series, especially those
published prior to April 2023.
• We continue to see incongruous trends in the data published in the ad tools of
various social media platforms. We’ll explore some of these changes in detail below,
but please exercise caution when analysing trends in social media audience data.

For further details, please refer to our comprehensive guide to changes in data sources,
research methodologies, and reporting approaches.

Top takeaways

If you need fast insights, I’d recommend starting with the video below, which will help you
understand all of this quarter’s top headlines and trends.

Once you’ve watched that, scroll down for the full report.
 ‫الحالة الرقمية في يوليو ‪2023‬‬

‫كما هو الحال دائما ‪ ،‬لنبدأ بأحدث العناوين الرئيسية لالعتماد الرقمي واالستخدام في جميع أنحاء العالم‪:‬‬

‫تظهر بيانات األمم المتحدة أن عدد سكان العالم قد وصل إلى ‪ 8.05‬مليار بحلول بداية يوليو ‪ .2023‬وكان هذا‬ ‫‪.1‬‬
‫الرقم أعلى بقليل من ‪ 1‬في المائة من الرقم المسجل في نفس الوقت من العام الماضي‪ ،‬مع نمو عدد سكان‬
‫العالم بمقدار ‪ 70‬مليون نسمة خالل األشهر ال ‪ 12‬الماضية‪.‬‬
‫ويظهر أحدث تحليل أجرته رابطة "جي إس إم إيه إنتليجنس" أن هناك اآلن ‪ 5.56‬مليار مشترك فريد في‬ ‫‪.2‬‬
‫الجوال حول العالم‪ ،‬أي ما يعادل ‪ 69.1‬في المائة من سكان العالم‪ .‬وزاد اعتماد الهواتف المحمولة بنسبة ‪2.7‬‬
‫في المائة خالل العام الماضي‪ ،‬وذلك بفضل ما يقرب من ‪ 150‬مليون مستخدم جديد‪.‬‬
‫نما عدد األشخاص الذين يستخدمون اإلنترنت بنسبة ‪ 2.1‬في المائة خالل العام الماضي ‪ ،‬ليصل إلى ‪5.19‬‬ ‫‪.3‬‬
‫مليار في يوليو ‪ .2023‬ويعادل هذا الرقم ‪ 64.5‬في المائة من سكان العالم‪ ،‬على الرغم من أن التأخير في‬
‫اإلبالغ يعني أن االنتشار الفعلي لإلنترنت من المرجح أن يكون أعلى مما تشير إليه هذه األرقام‪.‬‬
‫ويعادل عدد هويات مستخدمي وسائل التواصل االجتماعي النشطة اآلن ‪ 60.6‬في المائة من سكان العالم‪ ،‬حيث‬ ‫‪.4‬‬
‫وصل اإلجمالي العالمي إلى ‪ 4.88‬مليار في يوليو ‪ .2023‬زاد اعتماد وسائل التواصل االجتماعي بنسبة ‪3.7‬‬
‫في المائة منذ هذا الوقت من العام الماضي ‪ ،‬وذلك بفضل إضافة ‪ 173‬مليون هوية نشطة جديدة‪.‬‬

‫‪That’s a handy overview of the latest global state of digital, but the real insights come when‬‬
‫…‪we dig deeper into the data, so let’s dive into this quarter’s numbers‬‬

‫مستخدمو وسائل التواصل االجتماعي يصلون إلى معلم جديد‬

‫يكشف تحليل ‪ Kepios‬أن ما مجموعه ‪ 4.88‬مليار هوية مستخدم مميزة وصلت إلى منصات التواصل االجتماعي على‬
‫مدار ال ‪ 30‬يوما الماضية‪.‬‬

‫ويعادل هذا الرقم ‪ 60.6‬في المائة من إجمالي سكان العالم‪ ،‬مما يمثل معلما مهما آخر في اعتماد وسائل التواصل‬
‫االجتماعي العالمية‪.‬‬
‫من المهم التأكيد على أن هذا الرقم البالغ ‪ 4.88‬مليار ال يمثل بالضرورة أفرادا فريدين ‪ ،‬ألن هويات المستخدمين‬
‫النشطين من المحتمل أن تتضمن عددا من الحسابات المكررة والمزيفة ‪ ،‬باإلضافة إلى الحسابات التي تمثل‬
‫كيانات "غير بشرية" مثل الشركات األليفة والفرق الموسيقية وما شابه ذلك‪.‬‬

‫ومع ذلك ‪ ،‬مع استمرار منصات المراسلة والشبكات االجتماعية في الوجهات الرئيسية لمستخدمي اإلنترنت في‬
‫العالم البالغ عددهم ‪ 5.19‬مليار مستخدم ‪ ،‬ال تزال المقارنة بين هويات المستخدمين النشطين والسكان توفر‬
‫معيارا موثوقا الستخدام وسائل التواصل االجتماعي‪.‬‬

‫الصعود السريع لوسائل التواصل االجتماعي‬

‫يأتي هذا اإلنجاز الهام في تبني وسائل التواصل االجتماعي بعد ‪ 20‬عاما فقط من ظهور أول شبكات اجتماعية "كاملة" ‪،‬‬
‫مثل )‪ Friendster (2002‬و )‪ LinkedIn (2003‬و )‪.Myspace (2003‬‬
 ‫ أن معدل اعتماد وسائل التواصل االجتماعي العالمية قد تضاعف في السنوات‬Kepios ‫ يظهر تحليل‬، ‫عالوة على ذلك‬
.‫ الماضية فقط‬8 ‫ال‬

‫ عندما كان هناك ما يزيد‬، 2015 ‫ في المائة من سكان العالم وسائل التواصل االجتماعي في يوليو‬30 ‫استخدم أقل من‬
.‫ مليار هوية مستخدم نشطة لوسائل التواصل االجتماعي‬2.5 ‫قليال عن‬

We passed the “halfway” point in July 2020, when COVID-19 lockdowns fuelled
rapid increases in social media use that pushed the global adoption rate to 50.4
percent.

Current growth rates have slowed considerably compared with the double-digit
increases that we saw during 2020 and 2021, but the global adoption rate has still
increased by a relative 2.8 percent (+1.6 percentage points) over the past year
[remember that the global population has also increased during the past year, which
explains why the adoption growth rate doesn’t match the user growth rate].
Looking more closely at recent growth, it’s also worth highlighting that social media
user identities have grown faster over the past three months than at any other time
since the start of 2022.

The global user total has increased by 71 million identities over the past 90 days (+1.5
percent), meaning that the global figure increased by an average 777,000 users per
day between April and June 2023.

And the key takeaway here is that social media growth remains strong, despite overall
adoption passing that momentous 60 percent mark.

Social media use still uneven around the world

However, social media use still isn’t evenly distributed around the world.
Adoption rates are highest in Northern and Western Europe, where active social media user
identities equate to more than 83 percent of regional populations.

For easier comparison, these figures suggest that roughly 5 in every 6 people living in these
regions use social media today.

Meanwhile, the number of active user identities across North America points to an adoption
rate that’s closing in on three-quarters of the region’s total population.

Eastern Asia isn’t far behind either, with high social media use across China, Japan,
and South Korea pointing to an adoption rate in excess of 70 percent of the total
regional population.

However, Eastern Asia is also home to the country with the world’s lowest levels of
social media use.

The internet – at least as the rest of the world knows it – is still blocked for everyday
citizens in North Korea, which means that only a tiny fraction of the country’s elite
can access social media platforms.

Meanwhile, data suggests that just 1 in 11 people across Middle and Eastern Africa
use social media today.

And the adoption rate is only marginally better in Western Africa, where data suggest
that barely 1 in 7 people used a social platform within the past 30 days.

But lower levels of social media adoption aren’t confined to countries in Africa.

The latest data indicates that fewer than 1 in 3 people across Southern Asia use social
media today, with the adoption rate in Pakistan still languishing below 30 percent.
Women still underrepresented on social media

One of the biggest impacts on social media adoption rates across Southern Asia is a stark
gender “gap”, with women only half as likely as men to use social media across the region as
a whole.

This digital divide is at its most extreme in Afghanistan, where men account for a massive 84
percent of the country’s social media users.

But a large gender imbalance is clearly evident in Pakistan too, where men account for close
to three-quarters of all active social media accounts in July 2023.

Anecdotally, we know that some women in Southern Asia set the gender of their social
media profiles to “male” in order to avoid online harassment, and this practice may have a
small impact on these gender balance figures.

However, broader internet adoption figures show that many women across Southern Asia
are still unable to access the internet, which is by far the greatest contributing factor to this
digital gender divide.
Inequality of access remains a pervasive issue

Southern Asia is home to the greatest number of women who are unable to access the
internet, although the problem is not unique to the region.

A recent report from GSMA Intelligence reveals that:

“There are 900 million women in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) who are still not
using mobile internet, almost two-thirds of whom live in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.”

The report’s authors go on to state that – globally – women are 19 percent less likely than
men to use mobile internet, but given that mobile access dominates internet use across
LMICs, this figure is likely highly representative of the gender gap in overall internet use too.

What’s more, GSMA Intelligence reports that the internet adoption rate amongst women has
actually slowed for the second year in a row, although adoption rates for men have also
slowed over the past 12 months.

As a result, the report’s authors state that 100 million women per year will need to start
using the internet between now and 2030 if we’re to close the digital gender gap in time to
reach the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs).

But that sounds increasingly challenging, especially when we consider that 100 million new
female users per year represents an increase of roughly 65 percent compared with current
levels.

GSMA cites the primary barriers to internet adoption as:

1. Affordability, especially in terms of mobile handsets

2. Literacy and digital skills
3. Safety and security
However, the stark gender divide in the adoption of technologies like social media also
suggests that many women in Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa face patriarchal
resistance when it comes to accessing the internet.

But as GSMA Inteligence’s Mobile Gender Gap Report 2023 illustrates, such misogyny results
in everyone suffering, not just women:

“Addressing the mobile gender gap provides significant benefits. Mobile and mobile internet
can be life changing, providing access to critical information, services and opportunities from
anywhere, including those related to health care, education, financial services and income
generation.”

Restricting women’s digital access also perpetuates the very economic challenges that define
“lower- and middle-income” countries:

“GSMA research has found that closing the gender gap in mobile internet use in LMICs could
deliver an additional $700 billion in GDP growth over five years. In 2020 alone, the Alliance
for Affordable Internet (A4AI) estimated that the gender gap in internet use resulted in 32
LMICs missing out on $126 billion in GDP.”

GSMA Intelligence’s complete Mobile Gender Gap Report 2023 makes for essential – if
somewhat sobering – reading, so I’d strongly recommend downloading the full study.

India tops global population ranks

Data from the United Nations shows that India has now “officially” overtaken China to
become the world’s most populous nation.
The UN’s World Populations Prospects dataset shows that India is now home to almost 3
million more people than China, with the “switch-over” at the top of the rankings occurring
sometime in the middle of April 2023.

Moreover, India’s population is currently growing at an annual rate of just over 0.8 percent,
while China’s population is actually shrinking at a rate of 0.02 percent per year.

Together, these two nations account for more than 35 percent of the world’s total population
in July 2023, meaning that more than 1 in 3 people on Earth call one of these two countries
home.

And no other country comes close to matching their size, either.

The United States ranks third in absolute population terms, but the country only accounts for
4.23 percent of the global total, and America’s population is still four times smaller than the
population of either India or China.

Meanwhile, India’s Southern Asian neighbours have also seen meaningful increases
in population figures over recent months.

Bangladesh’s population has grown by more than 1 percent over the past year, while
Pakistan’s population grew at well over double the global average, with close to 2
percent year-on-year growth.

As a result, Southern Asia is now home to more than a quarter of the world’s total
population, with three countries across the region – India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh
– ranking amongst the world’s 10 most populous nations.
General interest in news

One of the most profound findings in this year’s Digital News Report is the stark differences
between age groups when it comes to interest in news.

The RISJ’s 2023 study reveals that barely 1 in 3 people aged 18 to 24 are interested in news
today – regardless of delivery channel or news brand – compared with more than half of
adults aged 55 and above.

But interest in news also varies significantly by geography.

This year’s study found that three-quarters of online adults in Nigeria are interested in
news, compared with less than 1 in 3 online adults in Slovakia and Taiwan.

However, perhaps the most striking finding here is that less than half of all online
adults are interested in news.

And these trends are evident in other research too.

GWI reports that fewer than 4 in 10 working-age internet users are interested in news
and current affairs, regardless of the medium or channel of delivery.

The geo-specific values in GWI’s survey differ from those we see in the RISJ’s data,
but both studies reveal important differences across countries and cultures.
However, the trends by age in both studies tell a similar story.

Similar to the values that we saw in the RISJ’s data, GWI also reports that just 1 in 3
internet users aged 16 to 24 are interested in news content, whereas that figure climbs
above 50 percent amongst internet users aged 55 to 64.

Trust in news

Another of the worrying trends in the 2023 edition of the RISJ’s Digital News Report is a
widespread lack of trust in news media.
At a worldwide level (excluding China and Russia), just 4 in 10 respondents to the RISJ survey
said that they trust news content overall.

Once again though, the data show marked differences by geography, from a high of 69
percent in Finland, to a dire low of just 19 percent in Greece.

Interestingly, trust in news tends to increase with age, although the data doesn’t make
it clear whether this is a direct consequence of the channels through which each age
group tends to consume news.

However, the fact that barely 1 in 3 internet users aged 18 to 24 trusts the news should
be of grave concern to us all.
More broadly, overall levels of trust in news have declined again this year, with the
global average down by two percentage points compared with the findings of the
2022 Digital News report.

And this pattern echoes trends in the 2023 edition of Edelman’s Trust Barometer,
which also shows a two percentage point decline in trust in the media at a worldwide
level.

Social media’s role in news

Across the full survey sample, an average of 53 percent of RISJ respondents say that they use
social media to access and consume news content.

However, this varies markedly between countries, from a low of just 23 percent in Japan, to a
high of 78 percent in Nigeria.
News on Facebook

In terms of the specific platforms that people use for news, Facebook still comes out as the
primary social channel for news at a worldwide level.

More than 4 in 10 worldwide respondents say that they consumed some form of news
content on Facebook within the past week, which is more than twice the number that said
they get news from physical print media such as newspapers and magazines.

However, Facebook’s role in news content varies significantly around the world.

Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of respondents in the Philippines say they consumed
news content on Facebook in the past seven days, compared with just 4 percent in Japan.
And Facebook’s role also varies by age.

Somewhat surprisingly, 32 percent of respondents aged 18 to 24 say that they

consumed news content on Facebook in the past week – a figure which is 1.6 times
higher than the equivalent figure for TikTok.

Indeed, despite endless media clickbait proclaiming the “death” of Facebook use
amongst young people, the fact remains that the platform is still the primary source of
social media news for audiences aged 18 to 24 [side note: when media headlines are
so clearly misaligned with everyday reality, it’s perhaps unsurprising that so few
young people trust the media].

But Facebook is even more popular amongst older audiences, and it’s interesting to
note that people over the age of 55 are actually more likely to use Facebook for news
than people aged 18 to 24 are.

News on YouTube

YouTube ranks second amongst the social channels used for news, with 3 in 10 respondents
watching news content on the video platform in the past seven days.

People in India are the most likely to turn to YouTube for news, with 56 percent of
respondents in the country telling the RISJ survey that they had done so within the past
week.

YouTube is considerably less popular for news in the UK though, where just 1 in 14
respondents (7 percent) said that they watched news content on the platform in the past
seven days.
The data for YouTube use by age offers some more interesting insights however, in
the sense that YouTube’s popularity as a news source is relatively consistent across
all adult audiences.

People aged 55 and above are slightly less likely to turn to YouTube to watch news
content, but there’s only a 3 percentage point difference between YouTube use in this
age group versus the top age group (people aged 35 to 44).

Moreover, all five of these top Chinese news brands have invested heavily in
Facebook advertising to grow their global reach, and each of them had at least one
active Facebook ad campaign running at the time of writing.
Crucially, many of these campaigns are specifically designed to attract Facebook Page
Likes:

And when we consider that all five of these outlets have significantly smaller followings on
other social platforms, it seems likely that a significant share of their Facebook followers
have been recruited through paid Facebook advertising.
Time spent with digital media increases

Following that deep-dive into digital news, let’s return our attention to broader trends in the
world’s digital behaviours.

In contrast to the declines that we highlighted in our recent reports, GWI’s latest data shows
that working-age internet users actually spent more time using the internet and social media
in Q1 2023 than they did in the last three months of 2022.

The time that people spend using the internet overall increased by an average of five
minutes per day during the past three months (+1.3 percent), to reach a worldwide average
of 6 hours and 40 minutes per day.

Meanwhile, the amount of time that people spend using social media increased by two
minutes per day (+1.4 percent), to reach 2 hours and 26 minutes per day.

Average social media use still varies meaningfully around the world though, from a
high of 3 hours and 49 minutes per day, per user in Brazil, to a low of just 47 minutes
per day in Japan.
Overall, social media’s share of total internet time crept up a fraction over the past quarter
(+0.1 percent), and following a meaningful drop in our April 2023 report, the latest values
have returned to roughly the same levels that we saw this time last year.

Finding information differs by age

Meanwhile, one of the most intriguing findings in GWI’s latest data is that the prevalence of
looking for information on the internet varies meaningfully by age.

“Finding information” remains the primary motivation for going online at a global level, with
roughly 6 in 10 people between the ages of 16 and 64 saying that this is one of the main
reasons why they use the internet.
And “finding information” remains the primary motivation across all age groups too.

But the interesting takeaway from this data is that the relative importance of finding
information varies by age.

GWI’s research shows that people aged 25 to 34 are the least likely to choose this
option, with just 55.6 percent of this cohort citing it as a primary motivation.

However, that figure climbs to 67 percent amongst users aged 55 to 64, meaning that
this older age group is more than 20 percent more likely to cite “finding information”
as a reason for going online, as compared with people aged 25 to 34.
But to put these figures in context, it’s worth highlighting that the average number of
options selected in answer to this question in GWI’s survey also varies by age.

At an average of 7.17, people aged 16 to 24 select the greatest number of answers in

response to this specific question, compared with an average of 6.79 for people aged
55 to 64.

For comparison, the average across all age groups is 7.03.

Trends in use of OpenAI

The latest data reveals that OpenAI is now one of the 20 most visited sites on the web.

Analysis from Similarweb ranked openai.com 17th in the world based on global traffic in May
2023, while Semrush ranked the site 19th for the same period.

More specifically, Similarweb reports that OpenAI’s website attracted 295 million unique
visitors in May, for a total of 1.86 billion visits.

For context, that equates to roughly 6.3 visits per unique visitor.

Similarweb’s data also shows that traffic to openai.com was roughly evenly split
between mobiles and computers, although computer traffic appears to be slightly
higher than that of mobile.

But it’s also interesting to note that users spent an average of just 4 minutes on the site
per visit, which is considerably lower than the average for the top 20 sites overall.

Semrush’s data tells a similar story to that of Similarweb, albeit with different figures.
The company’s analysis points to more than 761 million unique visitors to
openai.com in May 2023, for a total of 2.2 billion site visits.

Interestingly however, Semrush reports that visitors spent an average of more than 13
minutes on openai.com, with this figure closer to the average for these top 20 sites
compared with the trend in Similarweb’s findings.

It’s important to stress that “unique visitors” are more akin to unique devices than
unique human individuals, but even then, these figure highlights just how quickly the
world has adopted tools like ChatGPT and Dall•E.

Is AI’s novelty already waning?

However, Similarweb also reports that traffic to openai.com actually declined in recent
weeks, compared with recent peaks.

The company’s analysis suggests that the site’s worldwide traffic dropped by 9.7% in June
2023 compared with the previous month, while unique visitors were down 5.7% month-on-
month.

On the other hand though, Similarweb also reports that openai.com still attracts roughly 40
percent more traffic than bing.com – not to mention more than 10 times as much traffic as
Google’s Bard – so Microsoft’s deal with OpenAI still appears to be delivering value.

Google still dominates the web

But comparisons with Bing and Bard don’t tell the whole story, because this web traffic data
also reveals that OpenAI still has a long way to go before it “wins the internet”.
Indeed, just two domains – Google.com and YouTube.com – still account for more than a
quarter of global traffic to the world’s top 10,000 web domains.

For context, these 10,000 websites attract a combined total of close to half a trillion visits
each month.

But Similarweb data indicates that the top two Alphabet domains alone attracted more than
120 billion total visits in May 2023.

Meanwhile, only six websites – Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Baidu –
can claim at least one percent share of the global traffic to those top 10,000 sites.

However, between them, these six websites accounted for one-third (33.3 percent) of traffic
in May 2023.

And looking more broadly, Similarweb’s data shows that just 71 websites accounted for half
of total global traffic to the top 10,000 sites in May 2023.

Google still top for search

Furthermore, figures published by Statcounter suggest that Google has actually consolidated
its position as the top search engine over the past 12 months.

The company’s data shows that Google is now responsible for 92.6 percent of all web traffic
referrals originating from search engines, with the platform’s share increasing by a relative
0.8 percent (+0.78 percentage points) since June 2022.

Conversely, Bing’s share has actually fallen by a relative 13.4 percent (-0.43 percentage
points) over the past year, to reach 2.77 percent in June 2023.
However, it’s important to remember that these figures represent the traffic that search
engines refer to third-party websites.

And the critical consideration here is that tools like ChatGPT deliver their value without
needing to refer users to external web properties.

So, while Google Search may still be a top choice for marketers looking to direct traffic to
web properties, it’s important to remember that search engines and large language models
(LLMs) such as ChatGPT will likely play quite different roles in satisfying the world’s evolving
information needs.
Threads: the next big thing?

But what about Meta’s newest addition, Threads?

Well, the company itself announced that it took just five days for Threads to attract 100
million sign-ups, which many media outlets have highlighted was even faster than the two
months it took ChatGPT to reach this milestone.

Meanwhile, data.ai has revealed that Threads reached 150 million worldwide app
downloads just a week after its launch, and the service also attracted 100 million
active users during those first seven days.

India appears to have delivered the largest share of app downloads to date, accounting
for 1 in 3 downloads around the world.

India’s dominance is perhaps unsurprising though, given that the country is by far
Instagram’s largest market [note: Threads users sign up via an existing Instagram
account].

Brazil ranks second in terms of Threads downloads, delivering 22 percent of the

worldwide total, while the United States ranks third, with 16 percent.

But it’s particularly interesting to note that Japan ranks fifth, especially given how
important Japan is to Twitter’s global numbers.

Data.ai’s numbers suggest that Threads may already have between 7 and 8 million
users in Japan, although this figure is still considerably below the 68 million active
accounts shown in Twitter’s latest ad reach data.

Remember that Threads still isn’t available in the EU though – the “bundling” of
Threads with Instagram has fallen foul of the bloc’s privacy regulations – so we may
see quite different geographic splits if the app does become available across Europe in
the near future.
Data.ai also reports that Threads was the fastest mobile app launch of all time, with
the new platform’s momentum more than 5 times faster than that of the previous
record holder, Pokémon Go.

However, it’s worth highlighting that Threads’ launch was doubtless accelerated by
its close ties with Instagram, with those ties making it exceptionally easy for users to
“sign up” and start using Meta’s new service.

So, the key test of Threads’ success will be whether Meta can keep those users
coming back, and how often.

But why did Meta choose to align Threads with Instagram instead of Facebook, when
the latter boasts 1½ times as many monthly active users?

Well, data from GWI may offer some useful insights here.

If we explore audience overlaps, we see that Twitter users appear to have the greatest
affinity for Instagram compared with all other social platforms.

GWI’s data shows that 87.6 percent of active Twitter users also use Instagram each
month, compared with 82.5 percent for Facebook, 75.2 percent for YouTube, and 59
percent for TikTok.
However, GWI’s data also reveals that Instagram users are more likely to use
Instagram to look for funny and entertaining content than they are to use it to keep up
to date with news and current events, so it will be interesting to see how motivations
for using the new Threads service evolve.

For context, staying up to date with news and current affairs is the top motivation for
Twitter use today, with more than 6 in 10 active users citing this a top use case.

But on the other hand, it’s also worth noting that Instagram has the highest score when it
comes to people using the platform to engage with brands and marketing content, and this
may bode well for the commercial outlook of the Threads service.

However, my sense is that Zuck and team may have conceived Threads to be far more than
just another advertising channel.
Given the role that content published to platforms like Twitter and Reddit has played in
informing Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, there’s a good chance that Threads
has also been designed to inform and fuel Meta’s own AI tool, LLaMa.

Moreover, Twitter has recently imposed rate limits on how much content its users can
access, while Reddit has dramatically increased the cost to access its API.

These actions will likely have a major impact on data collection for LLM tools, which may
result in commercial opportunities for Meta to licence Threads content to third-party AI
tools.

But there’s another question that plenty of people have been asking in recent days: how has
Threads impacted Twitter?

#WhatsHappening with Twitter?

Well, following the concerns that we raised in last quarter’s deep-dive into the state of
Twitter use and engagement, we’ve actually seen some more encouraging trends in the
latest Twitter data.

For starters, research from GWI suggests that Twitter’s core fans remain loyal to the
platform, despite its significant changes over the past year.

3.3 percent of the world’s social media users still state that Twitter is their “favourite” social
media platform, with that figure remaining unchanged since this time last year.

Admittedly, 3.3 percent is only a small share of the world’s social media users, but that’s
enough to rank Twitter seventh in GWI’s latest survey, and fifth amongst platforms outside of
mainland China.
Wild fluctuations in Twitter’s audience data

But in a trend that we reported in significant detail in our Digital 2023 April Global Statshot
Report, the audience reach figures published in Twitter’s own ad tools continue to fluctuate
wildly.

Indeed, global reach totals have shown differences of well over 100 percent in just the past
few days, while figures for individual countries have shown differences of up to 300 percent.

Given these wild differences, it’s tricky to know how reliable Twitter’s published audience
figures are, or which “set” of figures most accurately reflects its current audience.

However, Twitter itself has reportedly been telling advertisers that it has around 535 million
“monetisable” monthly active users, so we’ve used the dataset published in Twitter’s tools
that most closely matches that figure as the basis for the Twitter figures we’ve reported this
quarter.

And in fact, these figures are the highest we’ve ever seen for Twitter’s global ad reach, which
should offer some mild relief for Elon and team.

We’d still advise significant caution when analysing this data though, especially given the
ongoing fluctuations in the company’s own numbers.

WeChat gains momentum

Despite already being well established, WeChat continues to consolidate its position as the
top social media platform amongst social media users in mainland China.

Tencent reports that the combined audience of WeChat and 微信 (Weixin) has now reached
1.32 billion monthly active users, which equates to more than 1 in 5 of the “eligible” global
population (i.e. people aged 13 and above).
The latest figures show that WeChat’s combined active user base has grown by 2.4 percent
over the past year, with 31 million new users joining the service in the twelve months ending
31 March 2023.

Furthermore, at a worldwide level, the number of social media users who state that
WeChat is their “favourite” platform has increased from 11.8 percent this time last
year, to 12.9 percent today.

For comparison, that 1.1 percentage point growth equates to a relative increase of 9.3
percent in just the past year.

But – given the geographic specificity of WeChat’s popularity – it’s probably more
representative to focus on the figures for China.

And the data here tells a powerful story, with a hefty 47.3 percent of social media
users in China saying that WeChat is their favourite platform.

GWI reports that the country accounts for more than 86 percent of WeChat’s total
global user base, while users in China account for more than 99 percent of those who
say that WeChat is their “favourite” social platform.
Instagram is a key opportunity for brands

Comparing activity across the top social platforms, Instagram users are the most likely to use
the platform to engage with brands.

GWI reports that 62.2 percent of Instagram users say that they visit the platform to research
purchases or see content from brands, compared with 54.6 percent of Facebook users, and
just over 40 percent of TikTok users.

However, marketers may want to note that just 1 in 3 active users (36.3 percent) uses Twitter
to seek out brand content, while this figure drops to a scant 21.8 percent for Snapchat.

These lower figures don’t mean that marketing and advertising content don’t work on
Twitter or Snapchat though; they simply reveal that brand content isn’t a primary draw for
users of these platforms, especially when compared with platforms like Instagram.

So, my advice here would be to treat each platform differently, and carefully consider
people’s motivations for using each service when selecting your platform mix, and when
crafting marketing content and campaigns.
Cellular data consumption soars

New data from Ericsson reveals that the typical smartphone user now consumes more than
20GB of cellular data each month.

Users’ average monthly data consumption has increased by 28 percent over the past year,
from 15.9GB per month this time last year, to 20.4GB per month today.

Meanwhile, Ericsson reports that total global cellular data traffic averaged 126 billion
gigabytes per month across the first quarter of 2023, representing an increase of 36 percent
versus the same period in 2022.
Young people slow to adopt internet banking

More great data from GWI shows that young people are significantly less likely to use online
financial services compared with their parents’ generation.

Barely 1 in 5 women aged 16 to 24 used an online banking, investment, or insurance website

or app in the past month, versus 31.5 percent for women aged 55 to 64.

Similarly, just 20.6 percent of men in that younger age bracket used one of these online
financial services, compared with 35.3 percent of men in the older age group.

However, it’s interesting to note that 12.2 percent of male internet users aged 16 to 24
say they own at least some form of cryptocurrency.

And while the figure for crypto adoption is still quite a bit lower than the figure for
use of more “conventional” online financial services, the two numbers are much
closer than one might expect.

For comparison, men in this younger cohort are roughly 60 percent as likely to hold
crypto investments as they are to use online banking, whereas that figure falls to just
22 percent amongst men aged 55 to 64.

These figures may in part be due to differences in earning power, but they may also
suggest that younger people feel “underserved” by current approaches to internet
banking.
Concerns about misuse of data

Concerns about companies’ potential misuse” of personal data appear to be waning,

according to the latest wave of research from GWI.

Two years ago, 33.6 percent of respondents said they were worried about how companies
might use their personal data online, but that figure has fallen to just 31.1 percent today.

A 2.5 percentage-point drop might not sound like much, but that change represents a 7.5
percent relative decline in concern in the space of just two years.
However, it’s unclear whether this change is due to an increased sense of wellbeing,
or simply greater apathy towards the topic of online safety and security, especially
now that people are spending less time online compared with the height of pandemic-
era lockdowns.

However, it’s interesting to note that the use of both ad blockers and VPNs has
declined during the same period, suggesting that people are either less worried about
online privacy today than they were two years ago, or that rising costs of living have
forced some people to abandon their use of these tools.

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