Threads and Bluesky nonetheless have fairly a technique to go to meet up with X within the U.S., based on knowledge from Pew Analysis Middle’s newest report launched this week.
The analysis agency requested about these smaller providers for the primary time and located they’re every utilized by slightly below 1 in 10 U.S. adults or fewer.
Whereas X shouldn’t be one of many largest social networks within the U.S., it’s nonetheless the one to beat inside the smaller market of social apps that concentrate on quick, real-time textual content posts that seem in a vertical feed.
This area has seen elevated competitors since Elon Musk purchased Twitter and rebranded it as X in October 2022, as Musk’s modifications to the platform’s content material moderation insurance policies and the positioning’s rightward political shift despatched some customers on the lookout for options.
Along with the expansion seen by decentralized, open supply networks like Mastodon and Bluesky, different startups launched would-be Twitter rivals like Spill, Put up, T2 (Pebble), and Hive. Many of those have since shut down, nonetheless.
Pew’s knowledge signifies how laborious X’s grip in the marketplace stays.
Even Meta, with all its sources and platform energy, hasn’t but been in a position to beat X with its competitor, Threads, the report discovered.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
In response to Pew, 21% of U.S. adults stated they’ve used X, in contrast with solely 8% who’ve used Threads, and 4% who’ve used Bluesky. Reality Social, in the meantime, had attracted 3% of U.S. adults.
Regardless of this competitors, X hasn’t seen a lot of a slip in utilization through the years, based on the report. For example, Pew’s report on U.S. adults’ social media use revealed at the start of final yr discovered that X was then utilized by 22% of U.S. adults. Its 2021 report confirmed Twitter (earlier than its rebranding to X) was utilized by 23% of U.S. adults.
In different phrases, if X is declining, it’s been a protracted, gradual drop.
This yr’s report additionally discovered that YouTube and Fb proceed to be probably the most extensively used platforms by U.S. adults, with 84% and 71% saying they used them, respectively.
In the meantime, 50% of U.S. adults stated they used Instagram, 37% used TikTok, 32% used WhatsApp, 26% used Reddit, and 25% used Snapchat.
Many of those providers have seen their adoption develop over time, Pew famous. TikTok is up from 21% in 2021, and Instagram, now utilized by half of U.S. adults, is up from 40% in 2021. Round a 3rd of adults now use WhatsApp, up from 23% in 2021.
Reddit, which has change into a darling of the AI period due to quite a few content material licensing offers, was utilized by solely 18% of U.S. adults in 2021, in contrast with 26% in the present day.
After all, all these figures look very completely different from U.S. teenagers’ social media use, the place YouTube stays No. 1, however is then adopted by a unique set of prime apps, together with TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.
