• by Todd Wasserman , July 12, 2023

Early indications are that Meta’s new app, Threads, is a hit, becoming both the fastest-growing social app ever, beating the previous record for the fastest-growing app in history set by ChatGPT, according to a UBS study.

While ChatGPT took two months to hit 100 million users, Threads hit that milestone in five days.

That gives Threads a leg up on Twitter, which currently has 259 million daily active users. One benefit of Threads is that it’s pretty easy to sign up -- just use your Instagram profile, including your username, verification status and followers.

Most importantly, a new study by Website Planet found that Threads is drawing more engagement than Twitter. The research studies 30 brands that had accounts on Twitter and Threads and made the same posts (or different post simultaneously) on both.

Of the brands analyzed on July 7, 87%  had more engagement on Threads than Twitter. “On average, these brands saw eight times more likes on the new platform,” Website Planet found. “Threads showed a higher average engagement rate than Twitter (0.45% vs. 0.02%).”

Of course, much of that engagement can be explained by the novelty factor and the ease in which Instagram’s 1.5 billion users can download the new app. Threads also has to contend with the fact that the average churn rate for new apps is 73% over three months.