Gary Zhou 
Key Points
- 💼 Twitter’s rebrand to X led to a drop of 4% in weekly active users.
- 💰 However, the rebrand resulted in a significant ~25% increase in revenue for X.
- 📱 Revenue growth was mainly driven by iOS users.
- 🌟 The increase in revenue could be linked to more subscriptions to X Premium, offering key features and a blue checkmark.
- 🚀 Despite revenue gains, the X app fell four spots in the Overall category rankings.
- 🤝 X’s ad revenue-sharing program likely contributed to higher subscriptions to X Premium.
- 🔄 Confusion from the rebrand led to a 350% rise in downloads of Twitter Lite, designed for emerging markets.
Mobile app analytics firm Sensor Tower has identified an intriguing pattern regarding X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter and spearheaded by Elon Musk. According to Sensor Tower’s findings, Twitter’s transition to X seems to have adversely impacted its user rankings while concurrently ushering in an upswing in revenue.
Sensor Tower’s analysis revealed that in the weeks subsequent to Twitter’s rebranding as X, there was a 4% decline in weekly active users. Paradoxically, this transition also led to a noticeable boost in revenue for X. Specifically, between August 6 and August 20, X experienced an impressive surge of approximately 25% in revenue, with the primary contribution coming from iOS users.
Observers in the industry have highlighted that X’s heightened revenue subsequent to its rebranding could be linked to an increased number of users opting for subscriptions to creators and services like X Premium. This premium offering provides users with essential features and a coveted blue verification checkmark. It’s a noteworthy trend, especially in light of the initial ridicule and criticism subscribers of X Premium faced from skeptics.
Perhaps one driver that may have resulted in an influx of subscriptions to X Premium is the social media company’s generous ad revenue-sharing program. As per the social media company’s help center, the ads revenue sharing program allows users to share revenue from verified users’ organic impressions of advertisements displayed in replies to content that is posted on X. An X Premium account is required to be eligible for the program.
As noted in a TechCrunch report, Twitter’s rebrand to X seems to have led to some confusion. Thus, downloads of Twitter Lite, which is designed for emerging markets, saw a notable increase following the company’s rebranding. In the first week of the rebranding, for example, Twitter Lite downloads rose by 350%, suggesting that mobile users were looking for the social media platform under its old name.
