Time spent on rival apps grew 23% during mega FB outage

The outage that struck Facebook's apps on October 4 led consumers to seek out alternatives for social media and messaging, precipitating a surge in time spent among apps from the company's competitors.

According to Sensor Tower, on the social media front, Snapchat saw the biggest increase as average time spent by existing users climbed 23 per cent week-over-week during the outage.

Snapchat led social media platforms in growth, with time spent climbing 23 per cent W/W. Other services saw a slight increase, with Twitter's usage climbing 11 per cent and TikTok experiencing a 2 per cent bump.

Additionally, time spent in Signal grew 15 per cent while Telegram saw time spent climb 18 per cent W/W.

Unsurprisingly, the outage on Monday affected usage of Facebook's apps as a large portion of users couldn't access the services. Instagram's average time spent on Android fell 28 per cent W/W. Usage of Facebook's Android app fell by 24 per cent, while WhatsApp usage declined by 25 per cent and Messenger's by 20 per cent.

However, this is not necessarily an indication of a permanent shift in user behavior. Facebook's apps have proven to be resilient in the past, with WhatsApp's monthly active users remaining steady even despite the backlash earlier this year to its new privacy policy.


An analysis of the same cohort of apps focusing on the number of sessions among existing, daily active Android users worldwide showed similar trends, with Snapchat experiencing the most W/W growth. When comparing October 4 to the week-ago day, the app saw a 14 per cent increase in sessions. Twitter saw 5 per cent growth W/W while TikTok saw a dip of 1 per cent.

Messaging apps Telegram and Signal also saw an uptick in session count compared to September 27, climbing 13 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively.

Facebook's apps saw a decline in session counts by existing users due to the outage, with WhatsApp falling by 15 per cent W/W, Instagram by 14 per cent, Facebook by 8 per cent, and Messenger by 7 per cent - IANS