Instagram Dismisses New York Post Claim About Drop in Daily Users

But who's telling the truth?

With all the negative press recently surrounding Instagram, it came as no surprise when the New York Post reported the app's 25% loss in daily users. “[We are] pretty sure the decline in Instagram users was due to the terms of service announcement," AppData, an app-analysis firm, told the Post about the December 17 announcement.

But it appears this may not be true. In a statement, Instagram denied any such claim, citing the holiday season as a reason many users haven't been using the app regularly. 

AppData reflects only Facebook-connected users of the Instagram app. Though the terms of service change spurred a lot of negative media attention and complaints from users, the decline in Facebook-connected daily active users began closer to Christmas, not immediately after the proposed policy changes. The drop between Dec. 24 and 25 seems likely to be related to the holiday, during which time people are traveling and otherwise have different routines than usual. A number of other apps saw similar trends, including Skype, Pandora, Pinterest and Yelp.

According to AppData, Instagram has lost a total of 3.5 million users in the last week. And depsite the company's dismissal, its dip in daily users has maintained, totaling just under 12.5 million as of December 28. 

What do you think? Is AppData reporting faulty numbers or is Instagram in denial?

[via Tech Now]


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