Koreans buy into worldwide Threads hype

Korea is buying into the worldwide hype for Threads, with the number of users in the country sharply increasing.

This photo, taken in New York on Thursday, July 6, 2023, shows Meta's new app Threads. [AP/YONHAP]

Korea is buying into the worldwide hype for Threads, with the number of users in the country sharply increasing.

The number of daily active users of Threads on Android-based mobile devices in Korea hit 55,171 on Thursday, the day the app was launched, Seoul-based market tracker Mobile Index said Tuesday.

The figure catapulted to 140,414 over the next two days, recording a 154.5 percent jump on Saturday.

Korea is one of 100 countries where Meta simultaneously launched Threads.

Despite early skepticism about the new service, Threads attracted more than 100 million users globally within the first five days since its launch. In comparison, Meta's photo-based social networking platform Instagram took a week to reach 100,000 users when it was launched in 2010.

"Threads reached 100 million sign-ups over the weekend," Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, posted on his Threads account Monday.

"We haven't even done many promotions yet."

Threads is a text-based micro-blogging service launched by Meta as a competitor to Elon Musk's Twitter.

The two platforms share many similarities; such as a limited word count — 280 characters for Twitter and 500 characters for Threads; limiting uploaded video's time span — two minutes and 20 seconds for unverified Twitter users and five minutes for Threads.

Threads' competitive edge comes from a more-than-1-billion-user Instagram base, with users required to have an Instagram account to access Threads. For Instagram users, creating an account on Threads is just a few finger taps away.

The number of Twitter users has dropped since Musk's takeover last year. The decline has accelerated since the Threads launch, with Twitter web traffic down by 5 percent for the first two full days that Threads was available, according to an analysis by Similarweb.

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]