"It Appears Unrelated to the Recent Controversy Over Sexually Explicit Images"
A recent survey found that X (formerly Twitter), the social networking service (SNS) operated by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has lost its top spot in daily mobile user rankings to Meta's Threads.
According to a report by TechCrunch, a U.S. IT media outlet, on January 18 (local time), market research firm Similarweb found that as of January 7, Threads recorded 141.5 million daily active mobile users (DAU). This figure is 16.5 million higher than X's DAU of 125 million, which had previously been the highest among similar platforms.
TechCrunch analyzed that the recent controversy over X's AI service "Grok" generating sexually explicit images did not have a significant negative impact on X's DAU, but rather that this reflects a long-term trend. X's mobile user base has been declining since early last year, whereas Threads has seen a steady increase over the same period.
Launched in 2023, Threads has reportedly grown its user base through cross-promotion with other Meta SNS platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. However, the reversal in rankings between X and Threads has occurred only in the mobile segment; when including PC web users, X still maintains a dominant market position. According to Similarweb, X had 145.4 million daily web visitors, far surpassing Threads' 8.5 million.
Meanwhile, the number of users on Bluesky, the decentralized SNS launched by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is also steadily increasing. According to mobile market analytics firm Appfigures, daily downloads of the Bluesky iPhone app rose by about 50% after the controversy involving X and Grok.
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