The rivalry between billionaire social media owners Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk is just heating up.
by Zuckerberg
(ticker: META) launched the microblogging site Threads last Wednesday and it’s already showing traction, apparently irritating Twitter owner Musk.
Threads hit more than 100 million users early Monday, according to data tracking website Quiver Quantitative.
analysis company
saying in an updated report on Monday that in the first two full days that Threads was available last week, web traffic to twitter.com fell 5% compared to the same days of the previous week. Compared to a year ago, Twitter traffic was down 11% over those two days, she said, adding that Twitter traffic was down even without Threads.
Twitter traffic fell 4% in June from the same period last year, Similiarweb said.
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Chief Executive Officer Matthew Prince seemed to confirm this trend in a tweet on Sunday, saying that Twitter traffic was “slumping.”
In what Similarweb called “a bad sign for app user loyalty,” Twitter user retention also declined. On Android, the percentage of new users who continue to regularly use the Twitter app after 30 days dropped from 19% in May 2022 to 16% in May 2023, Similarweb said. Loyalty from new Instagram users has held steady at around 40%, he said.
The data company said Monday that it will continue to track engagement, especially since Threads doesn’t offer features like hashtags that helped boost Twitter’s popularity.
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Zuckerberg pointed to the rapid growth in users in his own Thread post on Monday, saying: “Threads hit 100 million subscriptions over the weekend. That’s mostly organic demand and we haven’t activated many promotions yet. I can’t believe it’s only been 5 days!”
The rivalry only intensifies. Musk, who already suggested meeting Zuckerberg at a cage match, he tweeted on Sunday to insult Zuckerberg. He also proposed a contest comparing a certain part of the body.
Twitter provided an automated emoji response to Barron’s comment request. A spokesman for Meta was not immediately available.
Write Liz Moyer at liz.moyer@barrons.com