Recent actions by Elon Musk, CEO of X, have heightened concerns for its users and sparked an exodus from the platform. X, once known as Twitter, has seen a decline in user engagement, as have its rival platform META Threads by Meta Platforms Inc.
According to data collected from U.S. mobile users by market researcher GWS Magnify, the number of daily active users on X in the United States dropped from approximately 22 million in July to 21 million in the first half of September. However, there has been a slight increase from 20 million daily active users in the last week of August.
As for META Threads, the platform has experienced a significant decrease in daily active users since its launch in July. The numbers have declined by two-thirds, dropping from 3.4 million to 1.1 million by mid-September.
Interestingly, it appears that some Threads users are transitioning to X. In early July, only 29.8% of Threads users were also active on X. However, by mid-September, this percentage had grown to 54.2%.
On the other hand, the percentage of X users active on Threads peaked at 7.6% in July but drastically fell to 2.7% by mid-September.
The lack of captivating content on Threads and users’ reluctance to migrate from Twitter remain key contributing factors to Threads’ stagnation, explained Abe Yousef, a senior insights analyst at market researcher Sensor Tower.
Meanwhile, alternative platforms to both X and Threads are starting to gain traction. Bluesky, a decentralized social media platform, experienced a surge in new users following Musk’s threat to charge users. Over 50,000 new members joined Bluesky this week alone, bringing its total membership to approximately 1.125 million.
