Threads, Meta’s Twitter rival, was launched one year ago, almost exactly. After amassing a huge number of users in a short time after launch, usage of the app has slowed significantly. Threads is now at 175 million monthly users, but is still struggling to keep people on the platform.
One year ago, Facebook and WhatsApp owner Meta timed the launch of their Twitter, now X, rival app Threads to coincide with a wave of resentment over negatively received changes Elon Musk was making on his social media platform to huge success – seeing over 10 million sign-ups in a few hours. However, the timing of the launch proved to be a drawback for the company, as Threads was pushed out too early, and the app was unfinished, not even having a desktop version available at the time. Over the next few months Threads’ ballooning usage growth – quickly reaching 50 million users – began to stabilise and then petered out.
By August, one month after launching, Threads usage fell from around 50 million daily active users down to around 10 million, as the Instagram-run app was unable to keep interest. Similarweb wrote at the time that “Threads arrived on the scene during the latest flurry of controversies at Twitter, which had not yet rebranded itself as X but had annoyed active users with rate limits on posts, giving them extra incentive to look at an alternative.” “Threads may still have a better chance of becoming ‘the new Twitter’ than some other alternatives, but it needs to .
