Twitter User Growth (2021–2025)
Social media platform Twitter, recently renamed X, has been experiencing turmoil since its takeover by entrepreneur Elon Musk. The numbers say it all: Not only is its annual ad revenues falling, the number of Twitter users both worldwide and in the United States have also been declining.
How quickly are consumers abandoning the micro-blogging site? Here’s a breakdown of Twitter’s user growth by year.
Twitter’s user growth history: 2021–2023
A recent analysis of Twitter’s user growth by year shows that in 2021, the number of Twitter users worldwide grew by 4.8%. This annual increase paled in comparison to that of other popular social networks like TikTok and Snapchat, whose number of active users surged by 43.5% and 25.2%, respectively. That said, Twitter’s user base growth that year outperformed Facebook’s, which grew by 4.3%.
In 2022, Twitter’s user growth rate slowed by more than half, to 2%. This was in line with the market trend, as other social networks also experienced a slowdown. For instance, TikTok’s user growth decelerated to 19.7%, while Instagram’s dipped from 18.1% in 2021, to 6.5%.
Twitter is set to see its user growth rate in the red this year, as experts predict its number of users will decline by 2.7%. In the US alone, the number of Twitter users is expected to decrease from 58.7 million to 55.1 million—a fall of 6.1%.
Twitter’s user base growth: 2024–2025
According to industry analysts, Twitter will continue to lose users in the coming years. In 2024, its user growth rate is expected to hit -4.1%. Meanwhile, other rival social networks like TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, are expected to increase their user base, albeit at slower growth rates.
Twitter’s user decline will persist until at least 2025. Experts predict it will lose 4.9% of its users that year—the largest annual fall in the forecast period.
Twitter’s user base growth: average annual growth rates
From 2021 to 2025, the average annual growth rate of the number of Twitter users is expected at -1%. In contrast, TikTok’s is forecast at 18.7%, while Instagram and Snapchat’s average growth rates are predicted to be 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively.