Koo is dead, Threads is silent: Elon Musk's X continues to reign

Updated July 3, 2024, 3:16 PM IST

Launched in 2020, Koo is shutting down due to financial issues, failed partnership negotiations, and low engagement on the app.

Well, it seems that there is currently no other social media platform that can challenge, let alone beat, Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly known as X). Twitter ). Those who have chosen to fight against this microblogging app are either fighting for their survival or are officially dead. The latest example is Indian social media platform Koo.

Launched in 2020, Koo is shutting down due to financial issues, failed partnership negotiations, and low engagement on the app.

Co-founded by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka, Koo was introduced to the market as India’s alternative to Elon Musk‘s X. After its launch in 2020, the Indian social media app received initial responses from users in India and eminent personalities but fell flat after a few months.

According to Koo co-founder Mayank Bidawatka, at its peak, Koo had around 2.1 million daily active users, 10 million monthly users and over 9,000 VIPs, including some of the most prominent personalities from various fields.

“We were a few months away from beating Twitter in India in 2022 and could have doubled down on that near-term goal with the capital behind us. A prolonged funding winter that hit us at our peak derailed our plans at the time and we had to slow down our growth trajectory. Social media is probably one of the most difficult businesses to build, even with all the resources available, because you have to grow users to a meaningful scale before thinking about revenue,” he said.

Bidawatka said Koo has a 10% like rate, which is almost 7 to 10 times higher than Twitter, making Koo a more favorable platform for creators.

“Unfortunately for us, the market sentiment and the funding winter got the better of us. Koo could have easily expanded internationally and given India a truly made-in-India global brand. That dream will remain,” added the Koo co-founder.

With Koo shutting down, there is only one major competitor left in the market and it is also not getting good engagement despite being backed by one of the biggest players in the market – Meta. Yes, I am talking about SonMark Zuckerberg-owned Meta launched the Threads app to rival Twitter (X) in 2023. The aim was to target users looking for an alternative to the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.

Threads’ user interface and features are very similar to Elon Musk’s X. There has been some online banter between Elon Musk and Mark ZuckerbergTargeting the Threads app, the Tesla CEO has in the past trolled Zuckerberg on several occasions for copying features from Twitter.

In terms of performance, it’s been over a year, but instead of switching from X to Threads, many users have left the Meta-owned social media app. The Threads app also saw a similar spike as Koo in the first few weeks after its launch, but saw a significant drop in user engagement in the following months.

According to a report from The Verge, the Threads app experienced a rapid decline in monthly active users last September. Threads quickly surpassed 100 million signups after its launch. However, the number of daily active users on the platform declined rapidly in the following weeks.

Since its launch, Meta has released several highly requested features, including a search function, a follow feed, and a way to share posts via Instagram DMs. While Threads is designed to be a direct replacement for X, it may need to add more than just basic features to gain and retain new users.

On the other hand, since Elon Musk took control of the X platform, it has undergone major changes. According to reports, X has reached record levels of usage, with a 22.3% increase in annual traffic. The Musk-owned social media app is actively working on X with new features, updates, and changes.

Although the Threads app is currently struggling, we can’t ignore the fact that it is already backed by a massive user base on Instagram and Facebook. I think Threads is also very young and it will take time to grow. And for X, at the moment, I can say that it is the absolute king of the market.