Bluesky’s growth in the UK had little impact on X

Social media startup Bluesky is riding on a wave of recent users from the U.K., following Elon Musk’s controversial comments about the U.K. unrest in recent weeks. While the X exodus hasn’t yet been visible in app install or usage data from X’s biggest rival, Instagram Threads, Bluesky is boasting a surge in sign-ups and a 60% increase in activity from U.K.-based accounts, it says earlier this weekThe company repeated those claims on Wednesday, showing a graph showing a pointy growth in UK activity on its network, which now exceeds activity in other countries served by Bluesky.

The startup also reported on Tuesday that more Bluesky users had signed up in the UK than in another country in five of the past seven days.

Despite an influx of UK users to the decentralised social media app and alternative to X, latest data suggests that Threads, not Bluesky, continues to be higher placed to challenge X, Musk’s social network formerly referred to as Twitter.

According to latest evaluation According to digital market evaluation firm Similarweb, the impact of UK users joining Bluesky continues to be relatively small.

On August 11, Bluesky recorded 67,800 each day energetic users in the UK, which, while a recent peak, was not the highest usage Bluesky had ever recorded amongst UK users. In January of this yr, for instance, the Bluesky app recorded greater than 100,000 each day energetic users, making this latest increase less remarkable in this broader context, the company said.

Additionally, Bluesky’s UK monthly energetic user count was unchanged from June to July, while Threads’ UK monthly energetic user count grew by a modest 8.6%. (Overall, the company has previously said that fluctuations in X’s each day and weekly usage proceed to be inside normal limits, despite reports of users fleeing X.)

Meanwhile, the impact of this UK-led change on X has been disappointing. While August 11 was one among X’s weakest days of the yr, Similarweb said the Musk-owned app still had 6 million each day energetic users from the UK — significantly greater than Threads or Bluesky, the data suggests.

Generally speaking, X’s user base tends to fluctuate, but monthly energetic users were up 2.6% in the U.K. and three.4% in the U.S. from June to July. That might not be the best timeframe to investigate, though, since the stabbing that sparked the U.K. riots, fueled by online misinformation, happened in late July, but Musk comments enraged X users and British officials in August.

Still, Similarweb’s evaluation of worldwide Android data shows that X continues to be far ahead of Threads and Bluesky as of August 12, with 91.0 million global each day energetic users, in comparison with 34.9 million and 594,700 global each day energetic users for Threads and Bluesky, respectively. On the web, X.com saw 192.5 million each day visits on August 12, in comparison with just 3.7 million for Threads and 616,200 for Bluesky.

Despite this, the advantage of X is bigger in the US than in the UK

X is 5.9 times larger than Threads in the US and just over thrice larger in the UK in terms of monthly energetic users. This narrower lead could potentially make it easier for a competitor like Bluesky or Threads to win over the UK demographic if the switching trend grows over time.