The outage that struck Facebook’s apps on October 4 led consumers to seek out alternatives for social media and messaging, precipitating a surge in time spent among apps from the company’s competitors.
According to Sensor Tower, on the social media front, Snapchat saw the biggest increase as the average time spent by existing users climbed 23 percent week-over-week during the outage.
Snapchat led social media platforms in growth, with time spent climbing 23 percent W/W. Other services saw a slight increase, with Twitter’s usage climbing 11 percent and TikTok experiencing a 2 percent bump.
Additionally, time spent in Signal grew 15 percent while Telegram saw time spent climb 18 percent W/W.
Unsurprisingly, the outage on Monday affected the usage of Facebook’s apps as a large portion of users couldn’t access the services. Instagram’s average time spent on Android fell 28 percent W/W. Usage of Facebook’s Android app fell by 24 percent, while WhatsApp usage declined by 25 percent and Messenger’s by 20 percent.
However, this does not necessarily indicate a permanent shift in user behavior. Facebook’s apps have proven resilient in the past, with WhatsApp’s monthly active users remaining steady despite the backlash earlier this year to its new privacy policy.
An analysis of the same cohort of apps focusing on the number of sessions among existing, daily active Android users worldwide showed similar trends, with Snapchat experiencing the most W/W growth. When comparing October 4 to the week-ago day, the app saw a 14 percent increase in sessions. Twitter saw 5 per cent growth W/W while TikTok saw a dip of 1 per cent.
Messaging apps Telegram and Signal also saw an uptick in session count compared to September 27, climbing 13 percent and 9 percent, respectively.
Facebook’s apps saw a decline in session counts by existing users due to the outage, with WhatsApp falling by 15 percent W/W, Instagram by 14 percent, Facebook by 8 percent, and Messenger by 7 percent.
