Social media growth slows in India but purpose-driven platforms defy trend

India’s social media ecosystem continues to operate at extraordinary scale, but fresh data from Comscore’s Year in Review 2025 – India Edition signals a clear inflection point. Based on a year-on-year comparison of December 2024 and December 2025, the report suggests that the era of uninterrupted growth is beginning to plateau.

While platforms such as YouTube and WhatsApp continue to command massive user bases, the latest consumption trends indicate that the market is nearing saturation. Growth is no longer being driven by new user additions, but by deeper engagement from existing users—marking a shift from expansion to optimisation.

YouTube, with roughly 439 million users, remains the largest platform, though consumption declined 3% year-on-year. In December 2025, each unique visitor spent an average of 14.57 hours on the platform, down from 15 hours in December 2024. WhatsApp, with about 425 million users, saw a marginal 1% drop over the same period, while Instagram (330 million users) mirrored this with a 1% decline. Facebook, despite its entrenched base of 309 million users, registered a sharper 5% fall.

The slowdown is more pronounced among mid-tier platforms. Telegram saw a 12% decline in user base, while X recorded a 4% drop, underscoring growing volatility outside the top-tier ecosystem and signalling a consolidation of attention toward fewer dominant platforms.

At the same time, a set of purpose-driven platforms is bucking the trend. LinkedIn posted a 2% growth, driven by professional networking and content consumption, while Pinterest grew 3% on the back of intent-led discovery. Google Messages surged 13%, albeit on a smaller base, reflecting the stickiness of utility-driven communication.

The trend points to a shift toward platforms built around specific user needs rather than broad-based social engagement.

Engagement metrics further reinforce this shift. YouTube continues to dominate time spent at 14.5 hours per user monthly, followed by Instagram at 10.8 hours, while WhatsApp and Facebook clock roughly seven and 6.9 hours, respectively—suggesting that while growth is flattening, user dependence on a handful of platforms remains strong even as overall attention becomes more selective.

e4m reached out to leading platforms to understand their perspective on the Comscore data. Responses were awaited at the time of publishing and the story will be updated as and when they respond.

Saturation or attention problem?

Vinay Hegde, CEO – Investments (Media), Madison World, frames the shift as an “attention problem” rather than a scale issue. “Social media consumption hasn’t declined. The attention is fragmented now. The user base and overall time spent remain intact, but attention today is more passive, more scattered, and significantly harder to capture,” he said.

Hegde attributes this to structural changes in user behaviour and adds that social platforms are increasingly functioning as entertainment feeds rather than interaction layers, with passive scrolling replacing active engagement. At the same time, an explosion of creator-led and AI-generated content has led to saturation, contributing to fatigue even as impressions remain high.

Nimesh Shah, Head Maven at Windchimes Communications, views the current phase as stabilisation rather than decline. “These numbers reflect saturation. The earlier growth levers—creator ecosystems, monetisation models, and content expansion—have already played out. The next phase will require deeper consumer insight and more nuanced engagement strategies,” he said.

According to Shah, future growth pivots will likely be product-led, creator-led, and user-led —ranging from new features and evolved reward structures to regionalisation, privacy, and personalisation. Regulatory compliance and content governance are also expected to play a more central role.

The marginal de-growth across major pan-India platforms clearly indicates that we have hit peak market saturation, with digital fatigue finally setting in among the masses, shares Prasanna Iyer, CEO of Rezilient Digital. “Instead of passively scrolling public feeds, the Indian netizen is pivoting towards private, utility-driven ecosystems, which explains the solid traction we are seeing in spaces like Google Messages.”

OTT & Microdrama impact?

Adding another dimension, Sachin Kumar, Founder of BottleOpeners, points to competition from long-form and short-form digital video. “Streaming and microdrama platforms are eating into social media time. Services like Netflix, JioCinema, and Prime Video are driving longer, more intentional viewing sessions,” he said. “Even within the Comscore data, YouTube continues to hold the highest time spent per user, indicating that video-led platforms are retaining attention more effectively.”

Urban users, particularly millennials and Gen Z, are also showing signs of fatigue. The novelty has worn off. What we’re seeing is not a drop in overall consumption, but a redistribution of time across platforms and formats, Kumar added.

Stepping back, the shift reflects a broader transition in India’s digital ecosystem—from access-driven growth to behaviour-driven maturity. As users become more selective and time-poor, platforms are competing less for scale and more for relevance, utility, and sustained engagement.

What Does It Mean for Advertisers?

For advertisers, this shift is significant given the weight social media already carries in media planning. “Any fluctuation in time spent or engagement directly impacts planning efficiency and ROI assumptions,” said a senior marketer at a large FMCG company. 

“Even a marginal drop in engagement at scale can translate into inefficiencies in campaign performance, forcing brands to rethink frequency, creative strategy, and platform mix.”

Notably, Indian advertisers allocate a substantial share of their digital budgets to social platforms. According to the latest Pitch Madison Advertising Report 2026, the FMCG sector—which contributes nearly one-third of India’s total adex—spends over 30% of its digital media budget on social media alone. 

A significant portion of this is now flowing into influencer marketing, making creator-led engagement a critical lever for brands as traditional reach-based strategies lose effectiveness.

Hegde frames the shift as an “attention problem” rather than a scale issue. “Social media hasn’t declined. What has fragmented is attention. The user base and overall time spent remain intact, but attention today is more passive and far harder to capture,” he said.

This is also reshaping influencer strategies. As engagement fragments, brands are increasingly moving beyond top-tier influencers to micro and niche creators who operate within high-intent communities, delivering deeper engagement rather than broad but passive reach.

Going forward, brands will need to move beyond plain-vanilla media buying and the pursuit of scale-led reach, adopting more nuanced, engagement-first strategies.

“To move the needle and capture premium eyeballs, advertisers must shift their bandwidth towards conversational commerce and high-intent niche platforms where the user is genuinely engaged. In an age where search will yield fewer clicks and social fatigue sets in, lazy media planning will be deeply challenged,” said Iyer.

‘Incorrect Data’

However, not everyone is aligned with Comscore’s findings. Some industry executives have questioned Comscore data, arguing that it does not fully reflect on-ground consumption patterns.

Sandeep Amar, Founder of pdlab.me, dismissed the findings, maintaining that overall consumption is unlikely to have declined.

“There is no way overall internet or social media consumption is coming down. If anything, time spent is only increasing,” he said, adding that discrepancies in measurement or methodology could be skewing the results.

Amar maintained that advertiser investments in platforms such as YouTube and Instagram continue to deliver strong returns, and brands should not overreact to what may be an anomaly in reported data.

Some experts also cautioned that a single-month Year-on-Year (December) comparison may not fully capture underlying trends, advocating instead for a full-year analysis. They also questioned how Google Messages featured in the dataset, citing its relatively low visibility compared to mainstream social platforms.