Threads may not be the “Twitter killer” Meta wants it to be. After reaching 30 million users during its first 24 hours of activity, Threads’ momentum has slowed down. According to a Time article, the number of daily active users (DAUs) on Threads has dropped by 80% since the platform’s peak.
The Time report claims that Threads reached 50 million DAUs on Android devices shortly after its ballyhooed launch. A little more than a month later, about 10 million DAUs are still visiting the Twitter-style app on Android, according to data from Similarweb.
Figures provided by Sensor Tower show a similar decline in Threads’ engagement. The average user is spending about 2.4 minutes per day on the app — another 80% dip from the X rival’s peak.
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Threads seemed as if it could pose a serious challenge to Elon Musk‘s social empire when it launched in July. It only took a few hours for MrBeast to become the first person with one million followers on the app.
But in the intervening weeks, Threads has run into the same problem faced by X competitors like Mastodon: Many users find it boring. Kevin Driscoll, an Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, told Time that his Threads feed feels somewhat sterile.
“When I open it, I see a lot of very generic content that seems to be coming from a team of brand managers or public figures,” Driscoll told Time. “As opposed to what made Twitter feel exciting and compelling in its heyday, which was more direct conversation and live responses to things that were unfolding.”
Many of the big-name influencers who made noise during Threads’ early days now seem to be losing interest in the app. Streamer Pokimane has been silent on her account for weeks, and MrBeast hasn’t posted anything new in nearly a month. In his most recent post, he asked his followers for their opinions on Threads. A user responded with a picture of the Deez Nutz bar sold by MrBeast’s company Feastables.
Kyla Scanlon, a financial influencer who posts across multiple platforms, told Time that Threads’ late launch of a desktop version stunted the platform’s growth. She said that she has “mostly forgot” about the app. As she put it, Threads isn’t staying in the news because of its features; it’s making headlines because Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is attempting to fight Elon Musk.
Despite Threads’ recent struggles, Meta’s top man still thinks his new app can challenge X. In a Threads post, Zuckerberg acknowledged that the app’s user base will “take time to stabilize.” Until that happens, the Facebook founder is staying upbeat. “Early growth was off the charts, but more importantly 10s of millions of people now come back daily,” Zuckerberg wrote. “That’s way ahead of what we expected.”
Other proposed Twitter killers, such as the Jack Dorsey-backed app Bluesky, have gained traction by supporting niche communities that feel pushed out by Musk’s chaotic X reign. For Threads, those groups may come from abroad. According to Sensor Tower, about a quarter of all Threads users hail from India.
