Is enthusiasm for Threads already starting to wane?

The Threads application launched on July 5, 2023, in the United States. Image: Stefani Reynolds /AFP

The Meta group's new social network, Threads, got off to a flying start when it was launched at the beginning of July. But 10 days after its arrival, the much-hyped Twitter rival is already seeing a fall in active users.

Is the buzz already dying down? Meta caused a sensation when it launched Threads, its new social network, on July 5. Within hours, millions of users had activated their accounts, with some 10 million people signing up in just seven hours, rising to 150 million users a week later. It was a major hit. And according to some of the data collected by data.ai, Threads now counts one fifth of Twitter's weekly active user base worldwide, and 86 times that of Truth Social, Donald Trump's social network and Twitter's closest competitor in the US, with one million weekly active users.

However, despite this success, data gathered by Sensor Tower shows a slight drop in use of the application. The number of daily active users fell by 20% between Saturday, July 8 and the following Tuesday and Wednesday. Time spent on the app also dropped by 50%, from 20 minutes 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," Sensor Tower managing director, Anthony Bartolacci, told CNBC. "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 read: Twitter threatens to sue Meta over Threads, which amasses 50 mln users on Day 1

Even so, Threads remains a serious competitor to Twitter. The application was very quickly downloaded millions of times. "Within seven days, the app has amassed a staggering download count totaling more than 150 million worldwide. It did so 5.5 times faster than the second-fastest to that point, Niantic’s 'Pokémon GO,' which has held the largest app launch title since it debuted in July 2016," reports data.ai. In concrete terms, "Pokémon GO" took 33 days to reach 150 million downloads worldwide, whereas Threads took just six days.

The new social network has been most downloaded in India, accounting for a third of all downloads. Next come Brazil (22%), the United States (16%), Mexico (8%) and Japan (5%). However, Threads is not accessible to users in the European Union, due to European legislation on data privacy. Accounts created in Europe remain blocked, even with the use of a VPN.