More than half of users leave Threads, Meta is looking for ways to improve retention

Recently, Meta CEO Zuckerberg told employees that Twitter's competitor Threads lost more than half of its users within a few weeks of its launch, and executives are now focusing on improving Threads' user retention rate.

Zuckerberg said at an internal company meeting that the app's user retention rate is better than executives expected, although it's not perfect. "Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people signing up, ideally if all of them or at least half of them can stay, that would be great, and we're not there yet," he said.

Zuckerberg believes that the user churn is normal and estimates that the number of users will increase as the company adds more features to the app, including a desktop version and search capabilities.

Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said Meta is considering adding more "retention measures" to lure users back to the app, such as ensuring that users on Instagram can see important Threads.

Chris Cox’s comments came a day after Meta wowed investors with an optimistic revenue growth forecast, a sign of recovery for the company, which had faced serious questions last year about its heavy spending on the Metaverse as advertising sales plummeted. The revelation of the growth forecast sent Meta’s stock soaring 8% on Thursday.

Zuckerberg told employees on a conference call that he believes the company is on track, though not significantly ahead of schedule, with the virtual reality technology that will power the metaverse.

Meta needs to start investing in this effort before competitors like Apple, Google and Microsoft, which have spent years building operating systems for existing products, he added.

“That way, when this technology enters the mainstream, we have all the tools ready.” He predicts that mass adoption of metaverse technology will occur in the 2030s.

Zuckerberg and Cox also highlighted the company’s release this month of the Llama 2 artificial intelligence model, which is free for commercial use by any developer with fewer than 700 million users of its services.

In the week since its release, Llama 2 has received more than 150,000 download requests, Cox said.

Asked about a "cage fight" with Musk, Zuckerberg said he wasn't sure if it would happen.