Facebook MAUs, DAUs stalled in US, shrinking in Europe

Reuters

Facebook
is stalling — or going in reverse — in two of its most profitable
markets.

On Wednesday, the Californian social networking company announced
its Q2 financial results. They failed to meet Wall Street’s
expectations for revenue, daily active users, and monthly active
users, and the stock dropped as much as 10% in after-hours
trading.

In most of the key metrics, the company is still growing, albeit
at a slower rate.

But one cause for concern is Facebook’s daily- and monthly-
active users in two of its most important markets, US &
Canada, and Europe.

In the US & Canada, Facebook’s MAUs are flatlining, unchanged
at 241 million from the first quarter of 2017. 

The company’s MAUs in Europe actually declined slightly in Q2
2018, down to 376 million from 377 million. It’s the first time
Facebook has ever experienced a decline in monthly users since at
least September 2009, the first period for which metrics are
publicly available.

Overall, MAUs grew from 2.196 billion to 2.234 billion, buoyed by
growth in Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world.

Facebook

It’s not clear what’s behind the slumping user growth, though
young users have long gravitated awat from Facebook, facing apps
like Snapchat and Instagram instead. It’s also worth noting that
the decline in Europe comes as new user privacy regulations like
GDPR have recently kicked in.

It’s a similar story with daily active users. US & Canada
DAUs stayed unchanged at 185 million, while European users shrunk
more significantly, from 282 million to 276 million.

Again, overall DAUs grew to 1.471 billion, up from 1.449 billion.

Facebook’s
growth in daily users is slowing down — and in Europe it’s
even declining.
Facebook

It’s also worth noting that figures only apply to Facebook
itself. The company doesn’t release its DAUs or MAUs for its
other platforms like Instagram or WhatsApp, the former of which
recently hit one billion MAUs.

These alternative products will provide a vital hedge for the
company against Facebook’s declining engagement — though there
will be very significant overlap in userbase between the
different platforms.