X Ad Reach Drops 12% in a Single Year, Falling to 586 Million

Ever since billionaire Elon Musk bought it for $44 billion in October 2022, X, formerly Twitter, has been losing users and advertising revenue, and that hasn’t changed in 2025. Although the social media platform had plans to fuel growth through AI-powered ads and customer experience, the number of users and ad reach continued to fall.

According to data presented by Stocklytics.com, X ad reach has dropped by a considerable 12% in a single year, reaching 586 million in January.

X Ad Audience Shrinks by 80 Million in Year and a Half

Even before the Musk era, X, then Twitter, grappled with fierce competition from social media giants like Meta and Instagram.  But after the controversial billionaire took over the platform, things became much worse. Rebranding to X, changes in content moderation, the platform’s shifting direction, and Musk’s controversial leadership style have pushed away users and advertisers and cut monthly traffic. This negative trend continued in 2025, raising concerns about the platform’s future.  

According to the Digital 2025 Global Overview Report, X ad reach is far from where it was just a year ago. In January 2025, X ads could potentially reach 586 million people, or four million less than just six months before that. The 12-month difference is much more shocking. Statistics show the platform`s ad reach dropped by a massive 80 million since October 2023, when it stood at 666 million. Moreover, the platform has faced nearly 15 months of continuous decline, suggesting a long-term trend.

This huge drop in users shows just how much X’s popularity is fading. As of January, only 3.2% of social media users named X their favorite social media platform, half the shares of Chinese Douyin, WeChat, or TikTok, and five times less than the most popular platform, Instagram.

The survey also showed that X users spend an average of four hours and 57 minutes per month using the app, ranking it behind the Korean-Japanese app Line and closer to Telegram, whose users spend four hours and 12 minutes on the app each month.

 X Falls Behind Reddit in Global Social Media Ranking

After nearly 15 consecutive months of a user decline, Elon Musk’s social media platform has fallen even lower on the global ranking.

With 586 million users, X is now the eighth largest social media platform globally, far from its ranking just a few years ago. This puts X behind Snapchat and LinkedIn, which both have much more users and bigger audience reach, and far behind the industry leaders Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

The ad reach between X and these giants is quite shocking. According to the survey, after months and months of user decline, X now counts 100 million fewer users than Snapchat, twice less than LinkedIn, nearly three times less than TikTok and Instagram, and roughly four times less than Facebook or YouTube. As of this year, Pinterest is the only major social media platform with fewer users than X, or 340 million.