Threads, Meta’s prospective Twitter rival, appears to be losing steam barely a week after its peak usage on July 7. According to Similarweb, a digital data firm that studied the app’s metrics, the average time spent on Threads each day among U.S. users plummeted substantially from 21 minutes to six minutes, as reported on the social media service’s Android app.
While Twitter’s time spent decreased slightly (4.3% on Android), it still maintained a total of 25 minutes, which was substantially more than Meta’s Threads.
Between July 7 and 14, the number of daily active users on Meta’s Threads for Android fell from 49 million to 23.6 million. On July 14, Twitter had approximately 107 million users.
Read more : Twitter No Longer Needs Sign in to view Tweets.
Threads, Meta’s potential Twitter competitor, appears to be losing steam just a week after reaching its peak usage on July 7. According to Similarweb, a digital data firm that evaluated the app’s metrics, the average time spent on Threads per day among US users has dropped significantly from 21 minutes to six minutes, as reported on the social media service’s Android app.
While Twitter’s time spent on Android reduced slightly (4.3%), it still maintained a total of 25 minutes, which was significantly more than Meta’s Threads.
The number of daily active users on Meta’s Threads for Android plummeted from 49 million to 23.6 million between July 7 and July 14. Twitter has approximately 107 million users as of July 14.
Threads, a Twitter competitor launched by Meta on its current Instagram platform on July 5, garnered an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response. Within five days of its launch, Zuckerberg claimed that the new social networking site had surpassed 100 million users, potentially making it the fastest-growing consumer app in history, surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
According to Sensor Tower data, India accounts for over a quarter of Threads’ users, while the United States accounts for the second-largest percentage of users, at 17.6%.
Threads, however, lacked important capabilities available on other social networking sites, such as hashtag searchability, which some users and advertisers noticed. According to David F. Carr, senior insight manager for Similarweb, this could be one of the reasons for the fall in engagement. Threads, he believes, must provide a compelling incentive for people to migrate from Twitter or start a new social media habit.
Meta revealed additional Threads features to overcome the constraints, including an easier way for users to see who is following them and a translation tool. Nonetheless, when approached for comment, a Meta spokesman responded to Zuckerberg and Mosseri’s Threads posts.
The hurried introduction of Threads by Meta was purportedly driven by Twitter and its owner, Elon Musk. Musk’s policy changes, particularly those surrounding content control, have pushed brands and creators to seek alternatives. The debut of Meta’s competitor did not sit well with Twitter’s owner, with Musk condemning Threads’ privacy permissions, inviting Zuckerberg to a cage fight, and threatening to sue Meta over charges of poaching ex-Twitter employees and stealing trade secrets.
Despite the competition, social media analysts believe Threads will not totally replace Twitter. Instead, the world of text-based social media is expected to fragment into several platforms catering to various types of content. Threads, like its parent app Instagram, would emphasize on influencer-driven content, while Twitter would remain a platform for breaking news and discussion.
Twitter is dealing with its own set of challenges, with Musk noting that the company’s ad income is still down by 50% and it has negative cash flow.
