Social sign-in serves as a “leading indicator of consumer trust in the different online identity providers.” Facebook is currently in the lead for social logins, remaining the most popular choice for the ninth consecutive quarter. However, a recent study by Janrain reveals that Facebook’s lead is slipping, and Google is gaining ground in the social login space.
Back in the third quarter of 2013, Facebook’s share of social logins peaked at 54%, while Google accounted for just 25% of social logins. Now, for the second consecutive quarter, Facebook has dropped in popularity (from 49% in Q4 2012 to 46% in Q1 2013) while Google saw another increase in social logins, from 31% to 34%.
The Janrain study also analyzed social sign-ins across several industry verticals, including media, retail, entertainment and gaming, consumer brands, and music-related sites. While Facebook remains in the lead for all of these verticals, Google’s popularity for consumer brand social logins increased from 23% to 28% in the last quarter, in addition to a slight gain on media sites.
Like Facebook, Twitter has also seen a decrease in social login popularity, dropping from all all-time high of 10% in Q3 2012 to just 6% in Q1 2013. However, when analyzing social sign-in to music sites from Q4 2012 to Q1 2013, Twitter’s popularity rose from 12% to 19%, while Facebook’s dropped from 60% to 51%.
What’s the future for social sign-in? Will Facebook maintain the lead or continue to slowly lose popularity?
