While the number of Instagram users has grown steadily in recent years to reach 1.1 billion active users in 2019, the social platform will record a single-digit growth rate for the first time this year: 6.7% compared to 10.1% in 2018.
eMarketer finally revises its forecasts downwards and estimates that Instagram’s growth should reach 4.5% in 2020 (-5.4% compared to its initial forecasts) and 3.1% in 2021 instead of 4.1%. This slowdown would be due to the fact that older people are not joining the platform as quickly as expected.
Furthermore, despite an increase in the number of American users in the 25-34 age group (+11.4%), this group is not expected to grow significantly in the coming years due to increased competition from other platforms that will make its progression more difficult, such as Snapchat and especially TikTok, which is gaining momentum.
Nevertheless, Instagram’s advertising revenues continue to grow at high double-digit rates. Indeed, eMarketer expects its revenues to reach $13.86 billion in 2020 (+46.6%) compared to $9.45 billion in 2019, partly due to the development of its new inventories. This should keep it in second place in the social platform rankings for some time to come.