Threads experienced meteoric growth just after the launch of the platform. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta of which Threads is part, assures investors that there will eventually be at least 1 billion users. Although the question is what that guarantee is worth, now that it appears that currently only half of the number of users are also active on Threads.
While announcing the quarterly results last week, several investors asked Zuckerberg about the long-term expectations for Threads. To this, he replied that it is a “weird anomaly in the tech industry that there hasn’t been an app like this for text-based conversations that reached 1 billion users.”
His ambition for Threads is to reach that milestone: “I’m confident we can pour enough gasoline on this to grow it.”
In the meantime, at least, the platform will remain ad-free. For that, the CEO says he plans to wait until it has several million users.
Attracts users faster than ChatGPT
The social media platform attracted enormous attention during its launch. Within seven hours, the number of signups was already climbing past 10 million. The number of users grew even faster than when ChatGPT was launched.
It turned out to be a huge hype, with many users joining in only briefly. More than half of the number of registered users, therefore, are already no longer using the app. One day after announcing the quarterly results, Zuckerberg addressed his employees about the ongoing business.
“Obviously, when you have over 100 million signups, ideally it would be great if all or half of them stick around. We’re not there yet,” Zuckerberg told according to Reuters.
The company is looking for new features to keep users active. According to Chris Cox, CFO, it is a possibility that content from Threads could trickle down to users of the Instagram app.
Europe gives opportunities
However, the social media platform has yet to tap into all markets. Within Europe, Threads is not available (yet). It seems the app violates GDPR rules by asking for much sensitive information from its users before signing up.