Despite an impressive initial sign-up of over 100 million users within five days, more than half of them stopped actively using the Threads app.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the app acknowledged this issue, stating, “Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We’re not there yet,” he told employees.
Third-party data indicates that Threads experienced a significant decline in daily active users on Android, dropping from 49 million on July 7 to 23.6 million on July 14, and further down to 12.6 million on July 23, as reported by SimilarWeb.
The situation on iOS is yet to be revealed, but SimilarWeb suspects a similar pattern.
While the drop in users may seem discouraging, Zuckerberg reassured employees that user retention was better than expected.
He considered the drop-off normal and expressed confidence in improved retention as they add more features, such as a desktop version and search functionality.
He also suggested exploring retention-driving hooks, like allowing users on the Instagram app to access important Threads content.
Threads are integrated into Meta’s Instagram platform, enabling users to create a Threads profile as part of their Instagram account.
He also acknowledged the need to further develop basic functionality for the app and highlighted the challenge of attracting users to new standalone apps, a category where Meta has not had much success in the past.
Zuckerberg hinted that Threads might have benefited from user backlash against changes made by Elon Musk at Twitter now known as “X”.
He suggested that the unique circumstances surrounding Twitter’s situation could have played a role in Threads’ potential success.
Threads was launched by Meta on July 5 and received almost 30 million signups in the first 24 hours.
Many anticipated it will rival Twitter after its owner Elon Musk introduced a slew of changes including- a rate view limit which restricted the number of tweets users can view daily.
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