BeReal may BeHere to stay

Remember a couple of weeks ago, when we said – based on the Android user data available at the time – that BeReal was potentially dealing with a user retention issue? Well, the iPhone user data is out… and just like a delicious-but-filling burrito, you can toss that concern right out the window.

According to a new report from TechCrunch citing insider sources, the app currently has ~20 million daily active users. And with over 50 million total downloads, that means BeReal’s daily user retention rate sits somewhere around 40%. Which puts it squarely in the ballpark of competitors like Instagram (39%), TikTok (29%), Facebook (27%), Snapchat (26%), YouTube (20%), and Twitter (18%).

📸 Big picture: BeReal was founded in late 2019, but has exploded in popularity this year, going from 2.3 million total downloads to more than 50 million total downloads over the first nine months of 2022. And from a funding perspective, the app is flush. It secured $60M earlier this year at a ~$600M pre-money valuation, per multiple sources. 

But one big business question remains: how will BeReal make money in the future?

• Subscriptions, possibly, according to the Financial Times (paywalled). Though only time will tell for sure.

+In the know: It’s difficult to find solid user numbers from the early days of popular social apps, like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc. But with that caveat in mind – and knowing it’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison – the following stat should still provide some context on BeReal’s rise: about three years after Facebook was launched, the site boasted 20 million monthly active users.