BeReal pushes again at report that it is shedding steam, says it now has 25M every day customers

Just below a 12 months in the past, the buzzy new social app BeReal on the rise, with reportedly 20 million customers launching the app on daily basis to snap their candid images. Nonetheless, within the months since, BeReal’s traction has declined, in response to a new report from Similarweb, regardless of its rollout of recent options like messaging, the power to publish extra images and a “Associates of Associates” discovery feed. BeReal, nonetheless, disputes the brand new revealed estimates, saying that it’s nonetheless rising at a “wholesome price.”

In accordance with data compiled by the analysis agency Similarweb, BeReal has been shedding traction within the U.S., the place the app’s month-to-month lively customers on iOS and Android have declined from a peak of three.7 million in November 2022 to only over 3 million this August.

BeReal, reached for remark, stated this estimate was inaccurate, however declined to share its personal segmented market metrics.

As well as, Similarweb informed Information World BeReal’s month-to-month lively customers globally have declined to 16.06 million. That may be a drop from final 12 months’s reported 20 million — a determine that roughly traces up with Similarweb’s estimates from January 2022. This decline could have been much more important aside from the truth that BeReal utilization has continued to develop in its house market of France, the place the app is nearing 615,000 month-to-month lively customers in August on Android, up from lower than 500,000 final 12 months, Similarweb stated.

BeReal pushed again at these findings as nicely, noting that its app has greater than 25 million lively customers worldwide. It additionally identified that third-party experiences are simply estimates and its personal inner numbers are extra correct.

Picture Credit: BeReal

In fact, it’s widespread for brand spanking new social apps to see a burst of exercise and utilization earlier than settling down as some early adopters abandon the expertise and solely loyal customers are retained. However in BeReal’s case, the app has been stated beforehand to wrestle with retention regardless of now including new options and gaining mainstream notoriety as bigger social media firms ripped off its front-and-back photograph idea, together with TikTok, Instagram and Snap.

The app, founded by former GoPro worker Alexis Barreyat together with Kévin Perreau, debuted available on the market in December 2019 with an expertise that mimicked an older social app Frontback that additionally leveraged each of the smartphone’s cameras to take images on the similar time. To some extent, BeReal grew by word-of-mouth, aided by its college ambassador program and options like WidgetMoji and RealMoji — that’s, Dwelling Display screen widgets and the power to react with stickers in iMessage conversations. However its fast progress in 2022 was on the stage that sometimes implied advertising and marketing or advert spend, not simply natural adoption.

Because it turned out, BeReal had the funds to ship. The startup closed a Sequence B spherical of $60 million earlier in 2022, valuing the corporate at just below $587 million.

Sadly for BeReal’s longevity, images of what persons are as much as at a random time of day — each time BeReal points its push notification — are in the end not at all times as fascinating because the curated images of particular moments that customers publish on different photo-sharing platforms, like Instagram. Some BeReal customers even got here to know this, in truth, and began staging their BeReals or waited till they have been doing one thing price sharing — like going out with their buddies — earlier than posting late.

Apart from competitors from the social media giants, BeReal is now going through an explosion of different new social apps demanding customers’ time as myriad opponents have emerged to problem Twitter, now referred to as X.

For comparability, Instagram’s new app Threads has greater than double the variety of U.S. BeReal customers, at almost 7.3 million, Similarweb stated. That’s regardless of Threads’ large drop in utilization shortly after its launch. Within the third quarter, Threads jumped to 150 million downloads in its first week in early July — 5.5 instances quicker than another app, says market intelligence agency information.ai. It even turned the highest app by downloads within the quarter, changing TikTok as the brand new No. 1.

There’s additionally a brand new app referred to as BeFake the place customers can publish generative AI images every day, which might have at the very least non permanent enchantment. The app has $3 million in funding. BeReal, nonetheless, can’t capitalize on client demand for generative AI apps as a result of it could go towards its predominant thesis: that social media is faux and its app is about authenticity.

Picture Credit: Similarweb

In the meantime, Instagram’s flagship app continues to have greater than 48 instances as many customers within the U.S. versus BeReal, Similarweb famous.

However in a single small win, BeReal is outpacing the Twitter/X rival Bluesky, the report stated, the place it has almost 4 instances as many month-to-month lively customers. Nonetheless, Bluesky is in non-public beta and customers want an invitation to get in, so maybe it’s not a good comparability.

Nonetheless, even when BeReal’s inner metrics are correct, progress from 20 million to 25 million every day lively customers in roughly a 12 months isn’t an enormous uptick. BeReal may have to determine how you can make its app extra compelling to a bigger group of customers, which suggests extra fast improvement and exams of recent options.