BeReal, the increasingly popular social media app that every other platform wants to be, is seeing some major traction in 2022. New data indicates that the app—which is particularly popular with the Gen Z crowd—has racked up 53 million downloads so far this year. While the app is doing well in terms of downloads, it seems some people aren’t using the app daily.
If you’re unfamiliar with BeReal, the social platform aims to make posting online a bit more authentic. In a world of seemingly endless filters, insurmountable follower counts, and vapid influencer content, it’s not completely shocking that the world has been feeling some social media fatigue. Enter BeReal: a new-ish social media app that’s been popping off over the last couple of months amongst teens and twenty-somethings.
I say “new-ish” because despite the recent wave of new downloads and users—some of who might be within your own social circle—the app was officially released back in 2020. The app has seemingly caught like wildfire in 2022, with a report from Sensor Tower stating that BeReal has seen 53 million downloads across the App Store and Google Play Store in 2022 alone. What’s more impressive, most if not all of these downloads are from word-of-mouth. Likewise, monthly active users on the app jumped 2,234% since January 2022.
The caveat here is that only 9% of the BeReal’s Android downloads opened the app every day in Q3 2022, according to Sensor Tower’s estimates. While Sensor Tower didn’t report any data on the percentage of iOS users opening the app every day—and did not respond to Gizmodo’s request for the data—this is still an interesting conundrum. BeReal’s gimmick is that it’s a particularly low commitment social media app, where all users receive one notification per day to post within a two-minute time frame. Given this lackadaisical approach to posting on social media coupled with the app’s increasing popularity, you might expect this percentage to be way higher—especially since a previous report estimated the daily Q3 2022 Android users of BeReal’s competitors TikTok and Instagram to be 29% and 39%, respectively.
“BeReal’s mission is to build the best product,” BeReal said to Gizmodo in an email. “This is what matters to us. Metrics, fundraising, valuations, ranking etc. are not what we want to put under the spotlight - hence us not sharing these for now. All BeReal’s figures on the internet are...estimates.”
While BeReal may be lagging in daily users, the recent spike in downloads is a promising prospect for the app. This newfound popularity could be a rebound from the heightened social media consumption we all faced during the covid-19 stay-at-home orders. Users that download BeReal could be looking for a respite from the social media burnout they’ve been experiencing over the past few years, especially considering the world continues to open back up. What’s baffling about these data is the fact that the social market is so completely saturated with titans. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat (yes, people still use that) are truly the Goliaths to BeReal’s David.
Update October 12 10:00 am: This article was updated with comment from BeReal.