Various marketing intelligence companies reported that the Threads social media platform lost many daily users. The recent Similarweb report says the Meta app’s daily active users dropped from 49 million to 23.6 million in a week. Meanwhile, Sensor Tower stated the social network lost over 25% of daily users.
It seemed Threads would become a major success because it gained 100 million users faster than ChatGPT. However, its declining performance shows how competitive the social media sector has become. This news is an interesting look at how these online platforms lose users.
This article will elaborate on the recent Threads data reports from Similarweb and Sensor Tower. Later, I will discuss the possible reasons for the Twitter competitor’s decline.
What is the status of Threads?
Meta released Threads on July 5, 2023, and it gained 100 million users around July 10. In contrast, ChatGPT achieved that record in two months.
Unfortunately, intelligence organizations say the new social media app struggles to sustain its initial growth spike. Similarweb says its daily active users “dropped from 49 million to 23.6 million in a week.” Also, it shared these other trends:
- On July 7, Threads had more than 49 million daily active users (DAU) on Android worldwide. That represents roughly 45% of Twitter’s usage, with 109 million active Android users that day.
- On July 14, the Twitter competitor fell to 23.7 million active users, or about 22% of Twitter’s audience. Also, activity peaked at 21 minutes in the US that day.
- Most of the social networking app’s users were from the United States because it was unavailable in the European Union.
Marketing intel firm Sensor Tower also said the app lost many daily users. Its managing director Anthony Bartolacci told CNBC, “The Threads launch really did ‘break the internet,’ or at least the Sensor Tower models.”
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“In the 10-plus years Sensor Tower has been estimating app installs, the first 72 hours of Threads was truly in a class by itself,” he added. However, company data suggests user engagement significantly decreased since Threads’ launch.
On July 11 and 12, it had 20% fewer daily active users than on July 8. Moreover, people spent 50% less time on the platform, from 20 to 10 minutes.
“These early returns signal that despite the hoopla during its launch, it will still be an uphill climb for Threads to carve out space in most users’ social network routine,” Bartolacci said.
What are the possible reasons for Threads’ decline?
Photo Credit: abcnews.go.com
The intelligence companies did not specify factors for the young social media app’s decline. However, the most likely reason could be the lack of the following standard Twitter features:
- Threads has no hashtags, which enable users to join specific trends with their posts. Also, these facilitate finding messages.
- Also, the new social media app has no web version. In other words, Threads does not have a website at the time of writing.
- Twitter Blue members may miss being able to edit Tweets.
- Moreover, you can’t share DMs (direct messages) with fellow users.
- Threads don’t let users edit the alternative text to describe their photos and videos. Instead, it uses computer-generated statements.
- The new social media doesn’t show trending topics. However, the Instagram CEO told The Verge Threads is not for “hard news.”
- Also, you can’t embed Threads posts on other websites, limiting its functionality for online businesses.
- Threads doesn’t have a “Following” and “For You” feed containing the latest from your favorite profiles.
- You can’t arrange your feed chronologically because the app insists on a randomly generated one.
- The program doesn’t have ads but will likely accept them once it gains many users.
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Threads is a direct competitor to Twitter, but it lacks many of the latter’s features. People might be leaving because they demand these functions.
Conclusion
Threads lost nearly half of its daily users, according to Similarweb. Meanwhile, Sensor Tower reported its daily active users dropped over 20%. Yet, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri says he’s focusing on the platform’s other aspects:
“What I’m most excited about is the quality of the creator community that has shown up. Our focus right now is not engagement but getting past the initial peak and trough we see with every new product and dialing in performance.”
You may learn more about the Threads statistics by reading these Similarweb and CNBC reports. Also, check out more digital trends at Inquirer Tech.