X is still struggling to hold onto its European audience. The social platform formerly known as Twitter has reported another decline in users across the European Union, based on its latest transparency data filed under the EU Digital Services Act. The drop by itself is not huge, but the direction matters. X’s audience across Europe has been trending lower for several reporting periods, making it increasingly difficult to frame the decline as a short-term fluctuation.
X’s EU Audience Falls to Around 64.7 Million
X reported approximately 64.7 million average monthly active recipients across the European Union for the January-to-June 2026 reporting period. The figure was included in the platform’s latest Digital Services Act transparency disclosure. These reports give regulators and the public a clearer view of how many people use major platforms across Europe. For X, the broader trend remains weak. European usage has generally declined since late 2023, and although there was some improvement during the first half of 2025, that recovery did not last. User numbers dropped sharply during the second half of 2025 and remained close to that lower level during the first six months of 2026.
France, Spain and Germany Remain X’s Biggest EU Markets
France continues to represent X’s largest audience within the European Union, with roughly 12.4 million monthly active recipients. Spain follows with around 11 million, while Germany has about 10 million. There were small signs of stability in some of these markets during the latest reporting period. Germany posted a modest increase compared with the second half of 2025, while France and Spain also edged slightly higher. That sounds encouraging until the numbers are compared with the same period a year earlier. On a year-on-year basis, France was down about 11.6%, Spain declined around 12.1% and Germany dropped roughly 12.7%.
Other European Markets Have Seen Even Bigger Declines
The audience losses become more noticeable when looking beyond X’s three largest EU markets. Italy recorded a decline of more than 22% compared with the earlier 2025 reporting period, while Poland fell by almost 20%. Several smaller markets posted similarly steep drops. This suggests that X’s European audience problem is not being driven by one country or one unusual regional shift. The weakness appears broader, with multiple markets contributing to the overall decline in active users across the bloc.
X’s Usage Claims Tell a Different Story
The European figures sit awkwardly beside some of the messaging coming from X itself. Elon Musk and other executives have frequently highlighted strong engagement and record activity on the platform. The mandatory EU disclosures, however, show an audience that has been shrinking rather than expanding. Independent estimates have raised similar questions. Similarweb data cited by Social Media Today estimated that X had around 302 million mobile monthly active users globally in June 2026, along with approximately 123.7 million daily active users. Those figures do not include every type of usage and are not directly comparable with X’s internal numbers, but they add another layer of uncertainty around the platform’s actual scale.
X Says It Still Has Around 550 Million Monthly Users
X has previously placed its global monthly active audience at around 550 million users. That figure is considerably higher than some outside estimates, although different tracking methods make a direct comparison difficult. The European Digital Services Act disclosures are particularly useful because they come directly from X under regulatory reporting requirements. They do not reveal the full global picture, but they provide one of the clearest recurring snapshots of how the platform is performing in a major market. At the moment, those disclosures point toward stagnation and decline rather than meaningful audience growth.
Advertising Revenue Is Also Under Pressure
Audience decline is only part of the challenge facing X. The platform generated approximately $367 million in advertising revenue during the second quarter of 2026, according to financial figures cited by Social Media Today. That brought estimated first-half advertising revenue to around $710 million. The total was roughly $160 million below the comparable period in 2025, representing a year-on-year decline of about 18.4%. Advertising remains important because it was once the central engine of Twitter’s business, and weaker ad revenue suggests that many brands are still cautious about committing large budgets to the platform.
X Is Still Far Below Twitter’s Advertising Peak
The comparison with the pre-Musk era makes the advertising decline even more noticeable. Twitter generated roughly $2.2 billion in advertising revenue during the first half of 2022. Compared with the estimated $710 million generated during the first half of 2026, that suggests advertising revenue has fallen by around 70% over four years. X has spent considerable time trying to reduce its dependence on traditional advertising, but replacing that level of revenue is difficult. Subscriptions, AI products and other services have created new income streams, yet advertising remains an important measure of commercial confidence in the platform.
Premium Subscriptions Have Become More Important
Paid subscriptions now play a much bigger role in X’s business model. The platform offers several subscription tiers, including Basic, Premium and Premium+, with different features and pricing levels. Former X Head of Product Nikita Bier said earlier in 2026 that the company had reached a $1 billion annual subscription revenue run rate. That would represent meaningful progress for a business that previously relied heavily on advertisers. Even so, subscriptions still appear to represent a relatively small portion of X’s overall user base, and the company does not regularly publish detailed subscriber numbers across each tier.
Subscription Growth Does Not Fully Replace Lost Advertising Revenue
Even a billion-dollar subscription run rate does not automatically solve X’s broader revenue problem. Social Media Today estimated that an average subscription price of around $8 per month would work out to approximately 10.4 million paying users. If X’s claimed global audience of 550 million monthly users is accurate, that would mean only a small percentage of users are paying for the platform. The estimate is rough because subscription prices vary and X does not publicly provide a detailed breakdown of its paying audience. Still, it shows how difficult it is for subscriptions alone to replace the advertising business Twitter once had.
X May Be More Valuable as Part of Musk’s AI Strategy
X is also becoming harder to judge purely as a social media company. The platform now sits inside a much larger technology ecosystem connected to Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence ambitions. Millions of posts, conversations, breaking news updates, images and real-time reactions flowing through X can provide valuable data for AI development. That gives the platform strategic value beyond direct advertising or subscription revenue. X can support xAI and Grok by supplying a continuous stream of public information and online discussion, something very few other platforms can provide at the same scale.
Declining Users Could Still Become a Problem for AI
The AI angle does not make audience losses irrelevant. In fact, it makes active users even more important. The value of X as a real-time information source depends heavily on people continuing to post, respond and participate. If the audience steadily shrinks, the platform produces less conversation, less cultural activity and potentially less useful data. X does not need to return to Twitter’s old advertising model for Musk’s strategy to work, but it still needs a large and engaged community. Persistent declines across Europe could eventually weaken that advantage.
Europe Is Becoming an Important Test for X
X remains highly influential across politics, technology, sport, media and breaking news, and tens of millions of Europeans continue to use the platform every month. The latest figures do not suggest that X is disappearing. They do show that the platform has not yet rebuilt the audience momentum it once enjoyed. Advertisers will be watching those trends closely, as will creators deciding where to invest their time and businesses evaluating where their customers are spending attention. The next European transparency report could be especially important. Another decline would make the pattern much harder to dismiss as temporary.
Sources
Social Media Today — X Continues to Lose EU Users
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/x-continues-to-lose-eu-users/829384/
Social Media Transparency — X Platform Transparency Data
https://socialmediatransparency.org/platform/x
