Twitter's new competitor Threads, created by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, created a lot of buzz at the time of its launch. It crossed over 100 million users within five days and became the fastest-growing app ever. However, the app has experienced a significant drop in user engagement since its launch.
According to a BBC report, Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Threads has lost more than half its users. In an internal town hall meeting, Mr. Zuckerberg said that the retention on the app was "better than what the executives had expected, but it was not perfect".
"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 said.
The billionaire, however, also stressed that despite the drop, the situation was ''normal.''
''The drop in users is normal. I'm optimistic about retention rates improving as we add more features to the app,'' Mr Zuckerberg, added.
"Meta is looking at adding more retention-driving hooks to entice users to return to the app, like making sure people who are on the Instagram app can see important Threads," Chief Product Officer Chris Cox was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Previously, data from online traffic service SimilarWeb revealed that daily visits to Threads dropped from 49 million to 23.6 million within a week of the platform's launch. The report said that Thread's audience is about 22 percent the size of Twitter's.
Notably, Threads is the biggest challenger yet to Elon Musk-owned 'X', formerly Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of the world's biggest social media platforms, despite its struggles.
On Threads, people can post text and links and reply to or repost messages from others - an offering similar to Twitter's. The app lets users port over their existing follower lists and account names from Instagram, Meta's photo and video-sharing app that counts major brands, celebrities, and creators among its more than 2 billion users.
