Un Wall Street Journal article warns that new competitor to Twitter, Instagram, Threads, is losing steam. Citing third-party data from Sensor Tower, the paper reports that the number of daily active users on Threads dropped for a second week to 13 million, a 70% decline from a July 7 high. By comparison, Twitter's daily active users are around 200 million. Despite this seemingly worrying trend, it's too early to rule out Threads.
By other metrics, the app continues to grow its user base and traction in global markets, which could also boost usage over time, especially as the app's feature set improves.
A highly anticipated new app is expected to have stellar usage numbers in its first few days as the users set up your accounts, find and follow friends, and test the app's capabilities.
As the novelty wears off, it's also typical to see usage numbers drop as users revert to their old habits while determining if and how they will continue to integrate the new app into their daily routines. Furthermore, the WSJ notes, Meta executives said they planned for an eventual decline and do not view this drop in usage as worrisome.
Threads is still too new and too incomplete to make any kind of determination about its ultimate fate. Could it be an early record that ultimately flopped? Sure. But it could also be a legit Twitter killer or mid-tier hit. It's too soon to say that.
Launched on July 5 to global markets excluding the EU, Threads surpassed 100 million users within days of its arrival, becoming the fastest app to reach that milestone, ahead of Pokémon GO, according to the developer. application intelligence. data.ai.
During its first three days, it had 18,3% of Twitter's daily active users, or 54,4 million to Twitter's 298 million. Last week, data.ai estimated that the app still had about a fifth of Twitter's weekly active user base.
Credits: data.ai
Threads app installs peaked on July 9, a few days after its launch, when 24,5 million people downloaded the app worldwide on iOS and Android, data.ai says.
But while the initial enthusiasm may be fading, the app has continued to rack up more than 1 million new downloads daily for the past few days, from 1,76 million on July 16 to 1,06 million on July 20, for example.
Any new app on the market would be delighted to see numbers like these, though perhaps Threads should be judged more harshly because it has the advantage of the network effects offered by the nature of its parent app Instagram and the broader resources of Meta.
Data.ai estimates that the app has already had 185,32 million cumulative global downloads.
Credits: data.ai
Credits: data.ai
Another key point to keep in mind is that Threads is catching on in the emerging mobile markets where downloads continue to grow. The United States is only its third-largest market, data.ai analysis shows.
As of July 17, India and Brazil accounted for the largest number of installations, with 60,1 million (32,6%) and 40,2 million (21,8%), respectively. The United States delivered 27,8 million downloads or 15,1%. That is why the analysis company Similarweb showed that the declines in Android usage in the US (21 minutes on July 7 to 6 minutes on July 14) does not explain the entire Threads case.
While Threads usage may have dropped now, as Sensor Tower data shows, its early usage numbers demonstrated its potential as a rival to Twitter.
In its early days on the market, Threads users spent an average of 15 minutes per day in the app, across 9,4 app sessions. That's more than the "microblogging" category averages according to data.ai says it includes Twitter, Truth Social, Mastodon and Bluesky. Microblogging users then spent 12,5 minutes per day, on average, in 7,8 app sessions.
What's keeping people from using Threads more recently may not be the disappointment with the concept of the app itself, but rather its current feature set, compared to Twitter. Threads, though now publicly available, is still a beta version, an unfinished app, without a number of features users want in a microblogging tool, such as a chronological timeline, news tracking, the ability to view their "Like", a fully functional web version, an edit button, support for multiple accounts, among other classic features. These features are still in the works, along with the planned integration of Threads with ActivityPub, the protocol that powers the open source Twitter alternative Mastodon.
In one thread messageIn fact, users were quick to defend the app against the narrative that the app was dead, commenting that people should be more patient and wait for the necessary features, and reminding others that even Instagram wasn't a hit of the day. overnight.
Another post, headed by the social media consultant Matt Navarra, he asked “Threads is…?”. To this, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri replied “a work in progress”. In hundreds of other responses, many posted positive messages, calling the app an "opportunity," better than Twitter, an "inspirational," "exciting," and more—an indication that Threads is already building a community of fans.
Another indication is the app's US App Store rating, a 3.8-star rating on 20,000 reviews. Digging deeper into where it's losing points, it seems that many of those downgrading the app are doing so due to its incomplete nature, calling it a "promising start" but taking stars off for lack of certain features.
By comparison, Instagram has a 4,7 star rating and Facebook has a 2,3 star rating. Another thing Threads has going for it, based on these reviews and other online conversations, is that the app, for now, feels "less toxic" than Twitter, as several users have commented.
While Twitter users They're already dancing on Threads' graveThanks to The WSJ's report, the reality is that it's too early to report on the second week decline in Threads usage and conclude that Threads is dying. A record breaking app from the ground up and continuing to add users still has a ways to go and time to deliver the features people want, to regain traction.
Even seven-year-old Mastodon, Twitter's decentralized social media rival, continues to grow in the wake of Elon Musk's missteps. After the acquisition of Twitter, Mastodon peaked at 2,5 million monthly active users. By the time Threads launched, Mastodon had dropped to 1,7 million monthly users. Since then it has started to grow again, now seeing 2,1 million monthly active users. These things come and go.
There's also an online culture that's more willing to experiment with new apps, whether they're Twitter alternatives like Threads and Bluesky, Reddit alternatives like Lemmy and Kbin, or new ways to network like TikTok instead of the old-fashioned Facebook.
Also, for Threads to succeed, Twitter doesn't have to fail completely. Users can choose between them or they can use both. It is not necessarily a zero sum game.
That said, Meta doesn't have a great track record of launching successful new apps, having shut down almost everything it created (rather than just acquired) over the years. Threads could one day become another app added to your graveyard.
But in the meantime, an app with now an estimate of 116 million users and growing it is far from "dead."
Credits: Quiver Quant
