Facebook is being eclipsed by its youthful rival Snapchat
US Facebook has officially lost its cool. Snapchat is set to overtake it as the digital hangout of choice for teens and twentysomethings this year, as Mark Zuckerberg’s social media site struggles to remain relevant to the youth generation.
By the end of this year Snapchat, which with its disappearing messages and funky photograph filters has already won over young teens, will also become the most popular social media platform in the UK for 18 to 24yearolds. Snapchat is expected to grow that demographic by more than 350,000 users in 2018, to just under 5 million, putting it ahead of Facebook for the first time in the UK, according to a new report by eMarketer. Facebook is set to suffer its second year of declining use by the trendsetting group, to 4.5 million, a loss of more than 500,000 users in the past two years. The figures spell more bad news for Zuckerberg and Facebook’s growing age problem. Last year Snapchat overtook Facebook in the popularity stakes for 12- to 17yearold UK social media users. According to analysts a new younger generation of social media users who have never been on Zuckerberg’s site - so called “Facebooknevers” has now emerged. “These so-called Facebooknevers are eating into Facebook’s user growth significantly,” says Bill Fisher, senior analyst at eMarketer. “Many younger social network users are forgoing Facebook altogether in favour of more appealing mobilefirst alternatives, such as Snapchat.” Investors in Silicon Valley companies are particularly obsessed with growth Snapchat, Twitter and Netflix have all recently seen their stock market value take a hammering after missing analyst expectations and Facebook’s ageing demographics could start to become an increasing concern to shareholders. Last month, $120bnwas wiped off Facebook’s value the biggest ever one-day drop in a company’s market value – when it reported its first decline in users in Europe. Zuckerberg, who owns nearly 17% of the company, saw his paper fortune plummet from $86.5bn to $70bn, sending him tumbling from the third-richest person on the planet to the sixth.
Facebook remains by some distance the biggest social media player in the UK, although growth will slow to just 2% to 32.6m this year. Snapchat is about half the size, with just over 16 million UK users, with growth this year expected at more than 9%. “Facebook is still adding monthly users overall, but older age groups are mainly responsible for this,” says Fisher. Facebook’s once youth audience Zuckerberg was 19 years old living in a dorm at university when he launched it 14 years ago has grown up along with their founder. In addition, older demographics tend to come late to the internet party.
(The Guardian)