Last week, Meta's Threads texting platform reported a record 100 million signups in just five days, but according to Sensor Tower and Similarweb, the service is now seeing a slight downturn in new user growth. Informs Mind.
"The launch of Threads really 'broke the internet,' or at least our models," Anthony Bartolacci, managing director of marketing analytics company Sensor Tower, told CNBC. "In the 10 years that Sensor Tower has been measuring app installs, the first 72 hours of Threads were truly unbeatable."
But, he added, Sensor Tower's data shows a significant decline in user activity after Threads' launch: on Tuesday and Wednesday, the number of daily active users on the platform dropped by about 20% compared to Saturday, and the time spent per user dropped by 50%, from 20 minutes to 10 minutes.
"This suggests that despite the hype at launch, it will still be difficult for Thread to gain a foothold in social media users' routines," Bartolacci said.
"Meta support and integration with Instagram will likely bring Threads a much larger number of streams than other services, but it will require a more compelling proposition than just 'Twitter but without Elon Musk'."
Data from digital data and analytics company Similarweb showed similar trends. Threads saw a drop of more than 25% in daily active users between the peak on July 7 and Monday for Threads users on Android phones worldwide. The company has not yet completed the calibration of iOS data.
Since its debut on July 5, Threads has made headlines for its Instagram check-in integration, algorithmic feed, and positive advertiser sentiment. Within one day of Threads' launch, The Verge reported that users had already posted more than 95 million posts and 190 million likes.
Threads is still in a very early stage of development, and it is only natural that the sign-up boom is diminishing while users explore the new service and whether the community and the topics it promotes are a good fit.
A Meta spokesperson said: "While it's early days, we're excited about the early success of Threads, which has exceeded our expectations. We launched the app just over a week ago, and we are now focused on ensuring stable performance, delivering new features, and continuing to improve the experience in the coming months."
CEO Mark Zuckerberg commented on Threads that most of the growth to 100 million registrations was organic and not the result of promotions.
