Meta: Threads registered over 100 million in just 5 days Twitter's network traffic fell 11% compared to the same period in 2022

Recently, Meta CEO Zuckerberg announced that Threads had reached 100 million registered users over the weekend. He said that this was mainly organic demand and that there had not even been many promotional activities. I can't believe that it has only been 5 days. This is far beyond expectations. Threads reached this important milestone of 100 million registered users faster than OpenAI's generative chatbot ChatGPT.

ChatGPT surpassed 100 million users in two months, an unprecedented expansion rate at the time. It took TikTok about nine months from launch to reach 100 million users, and Instagram, owned by Meta, took about 2.5 years.

However, it should be noted that the data of Threads and Instagram are securely interoperable. Users can log in directly with their Instagram accounts. Personal profiles and external account links can also be imported from Instagramn with one click. In the default focused recommendations, all friends are from Instagram's friend list. Since Instagram has more than 1 billion ordinary users, it is not difficult to understand why the new application Threads is so popular. Compared with ChatGPT, Threads can be said to be "born with a silver spoon in its mouth."

Analysts point out that there is still a lot of room for Threads' user base to grow, and the app has not yet been launched in Europe because there are still some complex regulatory issues that need to be resolved in Europe.

Meta announced last Wednesday that Threads would be available for free download in more than 100 countries on the Apple App Store and Google Play starting today. The app has seen rapid user growth, with more than 2 million users registering within two hours of launch, more than 5 million after four hours, more than 30 million after 16 hours, and 70 million after less than two days.

Meta called Threads a "text-based conversation app" for Instagram when it was released. People soon discovered that it was a replica of Twitter. Currently, its users mainly post text messages, and each message cannot exceed 500 words. Since it has just been launched, Threads lacks some features that mainstream social media have. Threads also has no paid advertising yet, but many brands have joined the platform.

Investment bank Evercore ISI recently said that although it is still in its early stages, Threads is expected to bring considerable cash to Meta. Threads is expected to cover nearly 200 million daily active users in the next two years and generate about $8 billion in annual revenue.

Compared with the above revenue outlook for Threads, Meta achieved $117 billion in revenue last year and has more than 3 billion active users. Analysts on average expect Meta's revenue in fiscal 2025 to be $156 billion, which is far more than the estimated annual revenue of Threads of $8 billion mentioned above. However, Threads' prospects have an advantage over Twitter. Twitter achieved $5.1 billion in revenue in its last full year as a public company. Last summer, Twitter said in its last financial report as a public company that its monetizable daily active users were close to 238 million.

The threat Threads poses to Twitter is indeed huge. Meta executives, such as Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, have praised Threads as a more positive "public square," especially for groups that have never really embraced Twitter.

Traffic data also confirms this. The CEO of Cloudflare shared a picture showing that Twitter's user traffic has been "declining" since the launch of Threads.

In the first two days of Threads’ general availability, Twitter’s web traffic fell 5% compared with the previous week, according to Similarweb, a data company specializing in web analytics. Twitter’s web traffic fell 11% compared with the same period in 2022.

On Monday, Twitter's newly appointed CEO Yaccarino said that Twitter's daily usage last week hit a new high since February.

Twitter owner Elon Musk appears to have expressed some concern about Threads' strong performance, with his lawyer Alex Spiro writing to Meta accusing the company of "unlawful misappropriation" of trade secrets.

Musk and Zuckerberg, two Silicon Valley giants, have been mocking each other and even arguing about fighting. They initially said they wanted to "cage fight" and later said they might escalate to "gladiator fight". Over the past weekend, the two exchanged insults again, with Zuckerberg mocking Musk's tweeting style and Musk calling Zuckerberg a derogatory name. The specific content of the conversation was very eye-catching.