Despite these developments, X's in-app purchase revenue has been declining, with net revenue in May 2024 down to $7.6 million from $8.2 million in March. This could be due to the high frequency of low-quality posts from creators seeking to increase views, or the cost of the Premium subscription. X also faces increased competition from other text-first social apps and is still recovering from a name change from its previous identity, Twitter.
Key takeaways:
- Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, is developing new features to integrate xAI’s Grok more deeply into the social networking app, including the ability to ask Grok about X accounts, use Grok by highlighting text in the app, and access Grok’s chatbot through a pop-up on the side of the screen.
- These features were discovered by independent app researcher Nima Owji on X's website, but have not yet been rolled out to the public.
- Despite broadening the availability of Grok to mid-tier Premium subscribers, X's in-app purchase revenue was trending down as of May 2024, with a net revenue of $7.6 million, down from $8 million in April and $8.2 million in March.
- X is facing increased competition from other apps like Instagram’s Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky, and noplace, and is still recovering from its name change from Twitter, with a 32% drop in downloads on the App Store in May.