X Is Getting Serious About Premium
April was an interesting month for X. Not because of revenue, but because it looks like X spent April giving Premium users more reasons to open the app.
And that's a good place for a subscription business that needs a post-January boost.
Let's start at the top - according to Appfigures Intelligence, X earned $16M in net revenue from the App Store and Google Play in April, what it keeps after Apple and Google take their cut. That's roughly $1M less than March, or 6%.
It's been a challenging start to the year for X, but between a war in the Middle East, rising gas prices, and overall uncertainty, I don't think the revenue drop is a problem. There is a problem though.
As we've seen with other social platforms, the real revenue driver and reason free users convert is features. Snapchat has mastered that and had its best month of revenue in March.
It seems like X is thinking right though, pushing more features to Premium like custom timelines and fighting bots and spam, which have made the app harder to use.
Grok is still a Premium X feature, but with its standalone app growing revenue quickly ($29M net in April), I don't think that's as big of a driver as it once was.
Downloads Are Growing
The good news is that X's downloads have not only stabilized but are also growing, undoing the downward trend that started at the end of 2024.
Our estimates show X ended April with 11M new downloads from the App Store and Google Play. The last time X hit that level before 2026 was all the way back in August of 2024.
Another thing I think will be very positive for X's growth is the change in incentive for creators, which moved from "get paid for impressions" to "get paid for original impressions." A subtle but serious change that I hope will bring quality and diversity to the platform.
Looking at the trend, I won't be surprised if X manages to continue its download growth spurt into the summer. And with more reasons to go Premium, I expect to see revenue starting to grow consistently.
FYI - If you want more insights about mobile apps and games make sure to follow me (@arielmichaeli) on X.
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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.
