Threads, Instagram's response to Twitter (aka X, but I still call it Twitter), has seen downloads nearly double over the last few days - even before Elon's GFY moment.
Meta is putting a lot of effort into growing Threads so this isn't surprising. But is it actually working?
Yes. Yes, it's working!
Comparing new downloads of Thread with OG X (aka Twitter) we see that Threads is getting about twice as many downloads. In more absolute numbers, X saw 27M new downloads since September and Threads 41M, according to our estimates.
Those numbers include downloads of Twitter Lite, which hasn't been renamed yet.
Here's something that might surprise you but shouldn't. The biggest driver of new downloads for Threads is India. 11.2%, or 9.2M of those downloads came from India, according to our estimates.
the US was a distant second with 7.4% - 6.1M downloads.
India has been the growth driver for Instagram for quite a while now, which is why this isn't a surprise. But it's interesting to see it take the lead so early.
For context, the US isn't the biggest country in terms of new downloads for X either. The top country is Indonesia followed by India and only then the US. Although together, the three added fewer downloads than India alone added for Threads.
I don't can't answer the question of who will win this race but I do know one thing: Twitter lost a lot of momentum after rebranding and that's hard to build. Had it not rebranded, it would outpace Threads right now.
In tennis, they call that an unforced error.
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