Since its record-breaking launch on July 5, Threads, the app dubbed as the ‘Twitter killer’ by Meta, has seen a significant drop in daily users, plummeting from a peak of 44 million to merely eight million.
Additionally, the time spent on the app has sharply declined, raising concerns for Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, who had hoped to capitalize on Twitter’s ongoing turmoil.
Initially, Threads drew an impressive 100 million users in its first five days, setting a new record for the fastest-growing app in history. Users were actively engaged, opening the app 14 times per day and spending an average of 19 minutes on it.
However, the latest figures indicate a troubling downward trend, with users now spending a mere 2.9 minutes per day on Threads, and only opening it two to three times.
Mark Zuckerberg, currently ranked as the ninth richest person in the world with a fortune of $114 billion, acknowledged the decline in Threads’ popularity in mid-July.
Despite the setback, Zuckerberg expressed optimism about the app’s future and stated that the focus for the rest of the year would be on improving the basics and user retention.
He emphasized that Threads remains on a promising path, drawing parallels to the successful playbook used for Facebook, Instagram, Stories, Reels, and other ventures.
The declining daily user count poses a critical challenge for social media platforms as advertisers heavily rely on this metric to gauge audience engagement.
Twitter, with over 100 million daily active users, has faced its own struggles since being rebranded as X by billionaire rival Elon Musk, the world’s richest man with a fortune of $236.1 billion.
The Twitter-Meta rivalry has even reached a point where the two billionaires are reportedly planning a physical fight to settle their differences.
Amid the competition, Twitter threatened a lawsuit against Meta, alleging that the company hired former employees of Musk, who purportedly had access to Twitter’s trade secrets and confidential information.
Additionally, Twitter has experienced a significant decrease in advertising revenue since Musk’s acquisition of the platform for $44 billion in October 2022.
The success of Threads seems to be hanging by a thread. Meta is clearly facing an uphill battle to regain momentum and secure advertisers’ confidence.
