Donald Trump’s new social media platform Truth Social has seen a stunning 93 percent drop in downloads since it launched in late February, a new report showed on Wednesday.
The app — Trump’s most high-profile new business venture since the end of his presidency — has been installed just about 60,000 times a week for the past month, according to TheWrap.
“This is a 93% decrease from the introductory week, when 872,000 installs were recorded in the week of February 21,” a Sensor Tower expert told the outlet based on early data.
The desktop site has also reportedly seen a sharp drop in traffic, from 6 million visits in the first week it launched to now around 1.9 million weekly visits, according to Similarweb.
Users are apparently still having trouble accessing the site, forcing people who create an account onto a “waiting list” hundreds of thousands of spots long.
Perhaps as a sign of his waning popularity, Trump himself has largely refrained from sounding on the platform.
‘Getting ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!’ wrote the ex-president on February 21. According to GOP employee Frank Luntz, he hasn’t posted anything since.
The ex-president had hoped Truth Social would be an aggressive competitor to tech giants like Twitter and Facebook.
A report earlier this month claimed Trump was furious at the “lackluster” reception his app had received just over five weeks after it was first launched
To date, the former president has only posted once on the app – on the day it was first launched
But since debuting at the top of Apple’s free app list for most downloads, Truth Social has fallen more than 199 spots. It’s no longer on that list, which only goes to 200 as of Wednesday. It is not yet available for Android users.
Truth Social’s download page on Apple’s App Store fell from 361,000 visits in its first week to about 90,000 over a seven-day period last week, Wednesday’s report said.
It still appears at number 36 on Apple’s list of top social networking sites. It’s below Yik Yak, an anonymous chat app popular with high school and college students, and slightly above the gay dating app Grindr.
Despite the initial surge in popularity, the app was plagued by technical glitches from the start. Users reported errors and delays when trying to log in, and many who managed said they were forced onto a long “waiting list.”
A reporter who created an account in early March is still at 584,200. place in line.
Recent user reviews on Apple’s App Store suggest the problem still lingers for many Trump fans.
It also fell out of Apple’s top 200 most downloaded free apps after debuting at the top in late February. It is currently ranked #36 for social media on the App Store
“I’ve seen people with a higher number on the waitlist get in ahead of me… You can’t refresh. It’s been a month and you can’t ask anyone what’s going on. So I’ll remove it. It’s not worth sitting in my phone collecting data for nothing,” read a Tuesday review.
Another user said: “I loved the app but it kept me on waiting list number 180000 for over a month. I’ve never seen this in an app, not a fan, I still can’t experience the app.
Frustrated users still complain that they can’t access the app despite the rave reviews from the people who have
People who seem to have managed to access the platform gave it good reviews, praising it for being able to “speak freely” and calling it a “big family”.
Trump launched the platform amid a right-wing backlash against social media censorship after being booted from Facebook and Instagram over the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
Though the former president’s name is linked to the project, it still lags behind other free-speech-focused social media apps like Gab and Parler.
According to Sensor Tower, Parler reportedly has 11.3 million installs worldwide.
Truth Social was created following the founding of its parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group. TMTG raised $1 billion from undisclosed investors when it went public late last year.
A Similarweb report earlier this month shows that visits to the app have dropped from 2 million when it first debuted to just 300,000 average visits in one day.
That would put it on par with Gettr, another MAGA-friendly platform started by former Trump adviser Jason Miller. At the same time, Gab reportedly had about 650,000 page views.
A report from the Daily Beast earlier this month suggested Trump was furious at the “lackluster” reception Truth Social has been getting.
The former president had been overheard swearing furiously on the phone and having heated conversations on his glitchy app.
‘What the hell is going on?’ Trump said it at least once, people who heard him told the outlet.
The report details the ex-commander in chief complaining about “why aren’t more people using it – why the app isn’t quickly dominating the competition”.
He’s also reportedly unhappy with how the rollout is being covered. Several media outlets have reported on the technical issues that have plagued the app since its launch.