Originally launched in 2004, the social networking platform Facebook had amassed over 2 billion monthly active users by 2018. However, it was found that teenagers were no longer attracted to the platform and are more inclined to use its other acquisitions such as Instagram and WhatsApp.
An online market research company known as eMarketer said that 16-year-old Americans are now less likely to use Facebook than 60-year-olds. While 60% of the teenagers aged 12-17 used Facebook in 2015, we now have only 39% of teenagers in the previously mentioned age group to use Facebook in 2019.
It was found that a similar trend existed in other countries as well. One of the top reasons for this shift in demographics of active users may be attributed to the fact that the youth is more likely to capture their everyday moments and share pictures of the food they eat or the gadgets they buy rather than posting statuses or photos for sharing their lives with their grandparents or parents.
Also, Facebook has evolved into a platform that is better suited for contacting or keeping in touch with old friends. On the other hand, the ability to create animated stories, stream live videos, upload pictures with filters and more, has made Instagram and Snapchat teenager-friendly.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp and Instagram, because of which the company is no longer facing an imminent threat of losing out its customer base as they will simply migrate to its children platforms such as Instagram. According to the estimates of KeyBanc Capital Markets, 23% of Facebook’s revenue this year is reportedly coming from Instagram.
Instagram and WhatsApp are now evolving towards becoming more advertiser-friendly as they are improving their platforms to accommodate more advertisements. WhatsApp, which was advertisement-free for a long time, will now see changes as Facebook announced to start monetizing WhatsApp from 2020 onwards.
Clever acquisitions of social media platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp have put Facebook in a safe position where it can no longer fear the decreasing engagement and user activity on its primary platform. As the antitrust regulators have not objected to Facebook’s previous acquisitions, the company has now turned out to be a tech monopoly owning four out of the five most used communication applications.
