New research suggests
that the growth of Instagram's users in the United States is expected to slow down
between 2020 and 2023.
A slowdown in US
users
eMarketer projects that
Instagram user growth in the US will fall to single digits (that is below 10%)
in 2020. In its report
published in January 2020, eMarketer forecast a growth rate of 6.7% for
2020 compared to 10.1% in 2018.
"Starting in
2020, and through the end of our forecast period in 2023, we estimate that the
social media platform will grow slower than previously expected," eMarketer said, speaking of US users
in particular.
It's worth mentioning that in June 2018, Instagram announced hitting the 1-billion-users mark. But since then, it hasn't published any official data about the number of users on its platform.
Growth estimates
revised lower
eMarketer also revised
down its previous growth estimates for Instagram's US users. It lowered its growth
projections to 4.5% for 2020, down from 5.4%, while for 2021, the researcher
expects user growth at 3.2% compared to its previous estimate of 4.1%.
The reason behind these
lower projections, eMarketer says, "is the fact that older age groups are
not joining the platform as quickly as anticipated."
Why the slowdown
A 6.7% growth for 2020 still
translates into growth, but with fewer older age groups joining the platform,
and likely with the emergence of new social media and video platforms every day
and every month, this growth is likely slowing down.
In addition, stronger competition
from TikTok and a
resurging Snapchat continue to weigh on Instagram and its rise.
“Instagram
is doing really well—it is the second-most internet-penetrated social media
platform in the US behind Facebook, and despite increased pressure from
competition, we expect it to maintain its second-place position with a good gap
from the rest of the platforms,” comments eMarketer junior forecasting analyst Nazmul
Islam.
Unexpected
gains
It is worth mentioning
that despite the slowing older user growth for Instagram, the platform has seen
"larger-than-expected gains of around 11.4% for US users aged 25 to 34,
according to eMarketer.
A recent infographic by
Red Website Design put TikTok at the top of 5 social
media platforms individuals and agencies alike need to focus on in 2020.
Ad Revenues
In terms of ad revenues
for Instagram, eMarketer expects "high double-digit rates" and
revenues of $9.45 billion for 2019. The firm also forecast that this figure
would grow by 46.6% to $13.86 billion in 2020.
"Newly introduced
ads in different parts of the app, like the “Discover” tab, open up more
inventory for advertisers. Shoppable ads are currently in beta on the platform,
but we expect that they will play a major role in future growth,"
eMarketer concluded its report on Instagram.