X active users dropped, but in big surprise, Twitter Lite downloads saw 350% jump

The rebranding of X (formerly Twitter) was likely the hastiest exercise of its kind ever undertaken. The entire process took three days and involved crowd-sourcing a logo, taking off all physical and digital logos of Larry the Bird and replacing it with the new logo, and even adding a gigantic X on top of the company’s San Francisco headquarters. However, such a rapid rebranding often comes with some unexpected consequences, and in this case, it was a lack of spreading awareness towards the new name and logo. As a result, the weekly active users as well as the app ranking on both Play Store and App Store took a big hit. But surprisingly, Twitter Lite emerged as an unexpected winner in all this chaos.

According to TechCrunch a report that quoted Sensor Tower data, revealed that when X suffered a big hit in its total download numbers and weekly active users in the week during the period after rebranding (August 6-20), Twitter Lite witnessed substantial gains. In the first week after the rebranding, the app’s downloads jumped by 350 percent. Some believe this happened as Twitter Lite still carried the same name even after the main app’s name was changed to X. So, when people, who are not familiar with what is going on in the tech world, came to download the app and searched for Twitter, they could only see Twitter Lite and downloaded it instead.

The chaos around rebranding to X

Earlier we reported that Eric Seufert, an analyst, posted different graphs on his X account and highlighted the impact Twitter faced in app downloads after changing its name and logo. The graphs showed that the app fell massively among the top apps in that period.

Now, Sensor Tower data has provided a clearer picture, as shared by TechCrunch. According to it, weekly users dropped for the app by 4 percent while its overall category ranking fell by 4 numbers to 36.

But these numbers only paint half the picture after the X rebranding. Even as the user engagement and downloads took a hit, the revenue shot up. According to Sensor Tower data, the company saw a boost of 25 percent in revenue post the name and logo change. This boost largely came from the App Store (approximately 24 percent).

At present, the app has recovered and gained on its lost download numbers and engagement driven by app usage in India, the US, and Indonesia.