Researchers found out that the usage of Facebook among teenagers has decreased in the last quarter. According to a survey, people in the age group of 18 to 24 reduced using Facebook by 3%. This decrease of 3% from February 2013 to November 2013 has lead to all the pointless discussions or I would say rumors. It is said that, although Facebook is still the most popular and widely used, there is a possibility that this 3% drop might just be a beginning, which can therefore grow in numbers and can eventually result in its shutdown. An amplified conclusion says that Facebook has already lost its three million U.S. teenagers in the past years. Princeton University reveals that 80% of Facebook users will migrate to other social networking sites by 2017.
Many companies came in, drove the social connections and then fell because of unexpected hits. Thus, if the history of social media is viewed, the speculation about Facebook suffering a downfall in the future doesn’t seem completely deceiving. Some researchers state that teenagers have reduced using Facebook because more parents and older people have begun using it. It becomes embarrassing for them to use the same social networking site as their parents. It signifies that Facebook’s demography is shifting from younger to older generations. Thus youth connects more with other messengers. One survey compared Facebook’s usage among teenagers with other social media sites. The time when Facebook witnessed a 3% decline of its teen users, other sites like Twitter, Snapchat, Vine, Facebook’s whats app and instagram bagged users. This fact overly boosted such vain theories.
Despite such harsh claims, I suggest investors not miss their take on Facebook as there are valid reasons and facts that stand by the company, probably disregarding the predictions. Revenues of Facebook are up by a huge 72%, reaching $2.5 billion in the first quarter of 2014. Moreover, there are still 89% of teenagers into Facebook and that is after subtracting the minute fall of 3%. This is way more than the percentage usage of any other social networking site. However, there is a slight decrease in the younger audience, but it is not as big an aspect as it is made to look by the media, not when compared to the existing huge fan base of Facebook.
Media depends on famous companies as there is a lot of information and news generation scope from these, which highly interests the masses. This becomes even more beneficial when a popular social network like Facebook trips. In fact, information that reasons failure of a sky-rocketing company traps unavoidable attention .Perhaps this attention is sought by exaggerating a tiny and insignificant fall in Facebook users, whereas competitors believe that they have chances to succeed only when people leave Facebook. In any case, Facebook dominates, and there are faint chances of its replacement. Twitter is the closest possible competitor and even that generates just 10% of Facebook’s revenue.
The very famous and pretty recent WhatsApp acquisition by Facebook has opened new prospects for the company. Facebook can now penetrate into mobile messaging that it so far couldn’t reach. WhatsApp has the fastest-growing user base on the chart, and the count has approached the 500 million mark. Mark Zuckerberg believes that WhatsApp is on a path to reach 1 billion people worldwide in the next few years. Thus Facebook is well positioned to capture both the mature market and the emerging market that WhatsApp has tapped into while also reclaiming the teen users who are supposedly losing Facebook connect.
Forrester research proves that, in reality, Facebook use among teens has increased on the go. It undertook a survey by asking 4,517 teenagers their social media using habits, and the results that came out ditched all the speculation. Facebook is still young users’ favourite. A considerable portion also said that they were using Facebook more than the prior year. Adding to these eye-opening results, 28% of teens said that they use Facebook all the time. Also, Forrester expects the fast-growing smartphone market to help Facebook attain more numbers of teen users via its mobile app. The more the number of people switching to smartphones, the more access they have to Facebook’s mobile app.
Conclusion
Given the recent statistics, it doesn't look like Facebook has a teenager crisis. Moreover, the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram shows that Mark Zuckerberg knows that someday Facebook will go out of fashion and is constantly working to avoid it. Thus, Facebook investors shouldn't worry about any such thing.
