Why India Could Play A Key Role In Meta Threads' Battle With Musk's Twitter

The story was first published on the Benzinga India portal.

Since Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms Inc META launched its new social media platform, Threads, on July 6, it has been the talk of the town. But one question that’s on everyone’s mind is whether it will actually be the Twitter killer it has been set up to be.

Zuckerberg took to the new platform to announce that Threads had seen 30 million sign-ups so far. For a platform that’s only one day old, that’s an impressive feat but it still pales in comparison to Twitter’s more than 400 million users.

That said, the number of global monthly users on Twitter is predicted to fall by around 32 million users over the next couple of years after Tesla chief Elon Musk took over, according to market research agency Insider Intelligence. Musk has made sweeping changes at the social media platform since he took charge, ruffling a few feathers along the way.

In fact, Zuckerberg even took to Twitter after 11 years to post a Spiderman meme and replied to a users tweet, saying that there should be a public conversations app with over 1 billion people on it and that Twitter has had the opportunity but hasn’t “nailed it”.

See Also: Reliance, Adani Total Gas May Spend Up To ₹5,000 Cr On Biogas Plants

Battleground India

Indian users could prove to be Meta’s biggest advantage. Despite Twitter’s global appeal, microblogging never made much of an impact in India. Though celebrities and politicians frequent the platform, the country has only around 24 million users, according to data from Statista. This makes India Twitter’s sixth-largest market.

Meta’s upper hand comes from the fact that Threads is linked to Instagram. It’s even branded as “Threads, an Instagram app”. This suggests that Meta is likely looking to leverage its large user base on the photo-sharing platform to bolster Threads’ competitiveness.

In fact, users can jump directly from Instagram to threads using unique identification numbers that appear on user profiles and sign up using their existing Instagram details. They can also share Threads and posts on Instagram seamlessly. One issue that users have highlighted is that there is no way to leave Threads without deactivating your Instagram account as well – a feature that could keep users from leaving.

As of June, India had 326.6 million active Instagram users, making it the platform’s largest market by far, according to DataReportal. That means that if every Indian Instagram user joined Threads, the new platform would be within throwing distance of rival Twitter’s user base.

Social Media Frenzy

While it is unlikely that Instagram’s user base will join the microblogging platform, it’s clear that India’s large internet population of 759 million active internet users could be a deciding factor in Threads’ ultimate success.

On July 6, “Threads” was the most-searched keyword on Google Trends, with more than 500,000 searches.

The jury is still out on whether Threads could overthrow Twitter’s appeal as a source of news and interaction. In India, the new app will also have to compete against local microblogging site Koo.

Read Next: McDonald's India Pulls Tomatoes Out Of Its Menu Amid Soaring Prices