Janrain: Facebook Drops 3% in Social Login Market Share, while Google Surges 6% in Q4 2014
In October 2014, Janrain released a report (@Janrain) revealing the top social login providers across the web in the third quarter of 2014. Facebook led the results with 46% of total social logins in Q3 2014. In fact, Facebook has dominated social logins for the last five years.
On the other hand, the last quarter of 2014 saw some significant changes in consumers’ social login preferences, as Facebook “has another well-known digital brand hot on its heels.”
Janrain’s latest report (released on January 8, 2015), reveals that Facebook’s overall market share of logins decreased 3% in Q4 2014 following six months of consecutive growth. Meanwhile, Google’s share of logins grew 6% from the last quarter, and was 40% in Q4 2014. [See Figure 1]
Figure 1 (Source: Janrain)
Alexandra Larralde, Marketing Manager at Janrain, examined the closing gap between Facebook and Google. [See Figure 2] Explaining Google’s 6% increase, Larralde pointed out the advantage Google has gained from giving users a “one-stop identity” in managing different accounts under Google—Gmail, Play, YouTube, and Google+.
“Google’s ongoing moves to unify identity across many highly-utilized services helps solidify its value and ubiquity for consumers,” Larralde noted. This one-stop identity strategy allows consumers to use a single Google account to access other products across the web.
Figure 2 (Source: Janrain)
If this trend continues in the coming quarters, Google may overtake Facebook in social logins this year. Not wanting to be left behind, Facebook is trying to catch up with Google by improving its login features, as it migrates to its newer app version with the anonymous login option and added line-by-line controls. Anonymous login, introduced by Facebook in April 2014, aimed to address consumers’ data privacy issues. These measures could help Facebook regain the market share it lost in the previous quarter.
While Facebook and Google dominated social logins in Q4 2014, other major social login providers experienced minor changes in their overall market share. LinkedIn was the exception, as it raced ahead of Google on B2B sites from 29% in Q3 2014 to 35% in Q4 2014. [See Figure 3]
Figure 3 (Source: Janrain)
From 52% in Q3 2014, Facebook lost 3% of social login share in consumer brand sites, landing at 49% in Q4 2014. Google raced up with 7% share inflation from 31% in Q3 2014 to 38% in Q4 2014. [See Figure 4]
Figure 4 (Source: Janrain)
LoginRadius (@LoginRadius) also released a report on January 5, 2015, which studied over 120,000 websites with a monthly reach of 250 million social share views. According to LoginRadius’ “2014 Social Login and Social Sharing Trends” report, Facebook gained 65% of the total social login share in Q4 2014, which is up 11% year-over-year from 54% in Q4 2013.
Google+ accounted for 25% of the overall share, with Twitter ranking third in the report—but with only 3% login share. [See Figure 5]
Figure 5 (Source: LoginRadius)
Janrain reminds marketers and developers to expect big changes this year:
Marketers, developers and technologists alike should prepare to see additional shifts in 2015, as the two big identity contenders make substantial changes to their social login apps in Q1 and Q2.
Moreover, LoginRadius emphasized the website owners’ need for reports like these to improve strategies in better targeting users across the web.
These statistics will help in choosing the right social login and sharing ID providers for [website owners’] target audience. Based on the demographics that a website is trying to reach one can identify the most beneficial ID providers to offer. These statistics also show a general trend of social media preferences.
Marketing Digest Writing Team
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