Apptopia
- Facebook released an app for Instagram last week, called Threads, that's made for quick photo-sharing and instant messaging with those on your Close Friends list.
- In Threads' first week, an estimated 220,000 people out of Instagram's billion-plus users have downloaded the app, according to data from Apptopia.
- That's significantly less than the amount of people who downloaded Instagram's other apps in their first week: IGTV saw an estimated 1.5 million downloads, and Boomerang saw an estimated 2.8 million downloads.
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Instagram's latest standalone app may not be making as big of a splash among its user base as the company hoped.
Threads launched exactly a week ago as a new app for instant chatting and photo-sharing with those on your Instagram Close Friends list. Instagram's over 1 billion users were directed to the app store to take advantage of Threads' dedicated, private Snapchat-like space for chatting with people you talk with the most.
However, the push to download Threads hasn't proven to be successful. According to app analytics provider Apptopia, only 220,000 people have downloaded Threads globally across both iOS and Android devices. That's an estimate, but it's still significantly less than 0.1% of Instagram's total number of monthly active users, which has likely grown even higher than the 1 billion user number Instagram provided back in June 2018.
Threads joins Instagram's army of companion apps each catered to a certain feature inside the photo-sharing platform: GIF-making app Boomerang, collage-creating tool Layout, and its longform-video app IGTV.
But in its first week, Threads is drawing significantly less interest than Instagram's other standalone apps. When IGTV was released in June 2018, it accrued an estimated 1.5 million downloads in its first week, according to Apptopia. Meanwhile, Boomerang, released in October 2015, did even better: Apptopia says an estimated 2.8 million people downloaded the app in the first week it was available on app stores.
Instagram has not responded to Business Insider's request for comment about Threads' weak download numbers in its first week. The app is currently averaging less than 4 stars on both Google Play and the App Store, with some reviewers comparing Threads to a wannabe, watered-down Snapchat.
There are also some users who may have downloaded the wrong Threads app by mistake. As Business Insider reported this week, some Instagram users have confused the new Threads app with another app called Threads - meant for workplace communication - and have left a slew of complaints and one-star reviews on the Google Play store.
