Irish Facebook usage drops by 300,000 users in 2019

Facebook loses 300k+ users in Ireland in less than 9 months

– Facebook usage declines by around 10% in Ireland
– Almost twice as many pensioners as schoolkids on Facebook
– Facebook Stories is a failure
– Instagram is where the under 30s audience is

An analysis of Facebook usage by Mulley Communications has shown that usage of Facebook from January to September 2019 has declined by nearly 300,000 users, a little over 10% of their users.

Using the Facebook Advertising tool, data on Facebook and Instagram usage can be extracted. The most recent analysis of Facebook’s own numbers shows that:

200,000 people ages 13-35 no longer use Facebook compared to January 2019.
100,00 people ages 40+ no longer use Facebook compared to January 2019.
(full table below)

Facebook Ireland stats for September 2019
Ages 13-35 1,200,000
Ages 35+ 1,400,000
2.6M users total

Facebook Ireland stats Jan 2019
Ages 13-35 1,400,000
Ages 35+ 1,500,000
2.9M users total

More numbers:
Facebook Ireland stats September 2019
13-18  100,000
13-35 1,200,000
35+ 1,400,000
40+ 1,100,000
50+ 590,000
65+    170,000

Facebook Ireland stats Jan 2019
13-18  150,000
13-35 1,400,000
35+ 1,500,000
40+ 1,200,000
50+ 600,000
65+    170,000

Facebook is not for kids but their grandparents
Previous surveys from Mulley Communications showed there were more pensioners in Ireland on Facebook than schoolkids. https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/elderly-are-now-facebooks-biggest-users-as-teens-flock-to-instagram-37596537.html

The gap is even wider in September 2019 with 100,000 13-18 year olds on Facebook compared to 170,000 people aged 65 and upwards. In January there  were 150,000 13-18 year olds on Facebook and 170,000 people 65+

Facebook Stories usage is abysmal
In addition to general Facebook numbers we looked at usage of the new Stories feature. Both Facebook and Instagram copied the Stories feature on Snapchat to get more engagement. Stories on Instagram have been a wild success but have been a massive failure inside Facebook. 1.5Million people in Ireland use Instagram Stories out of 1.8Million on Instagram. 200k use Facebook Stories out of 2.6Million users.

What about Instagram?
Instagram hasn’t made significant gains since the last survey but there are still 1.8M people on Instagram so it hasn’t lost numbers compared to Facebook.
260,000 teens on Insta
900,000 under 30 on Insta

Analysis of Facebook decline
Commenting on the numbers, Damien Mulley from Mulley Communications said:
“We started looking at these numbers to see if the decline in teen users was continuing but we were very surprised at the losses in nearly every demographic apart from those over 50. It does seem that over 200,000 existing users have deleted their Facebook on top of teenagers not joining at all.”

“I think if you asked around, lots of people you know will have removed Facebook from their lives. We would think non-stop media coverage about Facebook data misuse has aided this and 2019 saw various movements encouraging people to close their Facebook accounts. Of course Facebook owns Instagram so they’re not that put out as long as Instagram keeps growing.”

” While the Facebook social network may be suffering, the Facebook galaxy of apps that also includes Instagram and Whatsapp and the upcoming Facebook currency service will still make this giant stay standing. There’s always a chance of encountering a David when you’re a Goliath though.”

Table of usage

Full data details