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Eagle-eyed Twitter users have noticed that it’s now categorizing itself very differently in the Apple App Store.
In an update yesterday, Twitter now sits in the News category rather than Social Networking. The move shifts it away from its competitors like Facebook, Snapchat and Kik. The switch boosted the app from sixth place in Social Networking to first place within News, according to App Annie.
Twitter sick of being below Facebook in App Store charts when listed under Social Networking? Now listed under News pic.twitter.com/sbRJYcsgOx
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) April 28, 2016
But why? Twitter didn’t immediately respond for comment, but the change is a quick way to boost its visibility within the App Store’s rankings and bring in new users.
Perhaps Twitter thinks that the boost in rankings will attract attention from people who are looking for new apps and increase its ranking in the Overall category, where it’s in 27th place. For comparison, Facebook places 7th and Snapchat places 2nd in the same category.
The change comes two days after Twitter announced its second-quarter earnings, revealing that user growth is still sluggish despite the additions meant to make the service more friendly, like adding Moments and a different timeline. Shifting the category might juice its slowly growing user base. In the first quarter Twitter added just five million new users, bringing it to 310 million active monthly users. Facebook has 1.65 billion monthly active users.
Twitter is still listed under the Social Networking category on Google Play.
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