Meta’s Twitter-like platform Threads, has recently recorded a decline in user engagement and daily active users days after its launch.
According to data from Sensor Tower, the platform saw a 20% decline in daily active users and a 50% reduction in time spent within a week of a record-breaking 100 million sign-ups.
Speaking on the decline in user engagement on Threads, the managing director at Sensor Tower, Anthony Bartolacci said,
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“The Threads launch really did break the internet, or at least the sensor Tower models. 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.
“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. The backing of Meta and the integration with Instagram likely gives Threads a much higher flood than other services, but it will need a more compelling value proposition than simply ‘Twitter, but without Elon Musk”.
Also, data from Similarweb, an Israeli-based software & data company specializing in web analytics, web traffic, and performance, showed a similar decline in Threads users’ engagement. The app saw a decline of more than 25% in daily active users between its July 7 peak and Monday for Threads users on Android phones worldwide.
Similarweb data suggested that Threads usage dropped by more than half with the average amount of time U.S. users spent on the app dropping from about 20 minutes on July 6 to just over 8 minutes on July 10.
Senior insights manager at the data company David Carr stated that while there was intense interest in checking out the app initially, not every user has made a habit of visiting Threads as often as they might other social apps.
This report is coming after Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino downplayed the reports of Twitter’s traffic tanking, following the launch of Meta’s Threads.
The new CEO of the Microblogging app on Monday took to her Twitter handle to disclose that last week, Twitter had its biggest usage since February.
Threads has continued to make headlines since its debut, after becoming the fastest-growing app with 100 million users in under a week. The increased number of sign-ups was however expected as it is with new apps and also because several users were searching for Twitter alternatives following Musk’s continuous “unpleasant” changes on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Threads’ traffic decline in user engagement could be linked to the fact that the app is still in its early days, with several interesting features still missing on the platform. For instance, the app does not yet have a direct messaging function and lacks a desktop version that certain users, such as business organizations rely on.
The team at Meta during the launch of the app, however disclosed that in the coming months, new features will be delivered to continue to improve users’ experience.
Though Threads is off to a remarkable start, having leveraged Instagram’s social graph to quickly scale its user base and users’ social connections, the app’s long-term future is uncertain.