Bluesky's UK surge has had little impact on X

Social networking startup Bluesky is benefiting from a surge of new users from the U.K., following Elon Musk’s controversial statements over the U.K. riots in recent weeks. Although the X exodus wasn’t yet visible in the app install or usage data for X’s biggest rival, Instagram Threads, Bluesky has been touting an increase in signups and a 60% jump in activity from U.K.-based accounts, it said earlier this week. The company on Wednesday repeated these claims, showing a chart displaying a sharp increase in U.K. activity on its network that’s spiking past all other countries on Bluesky right now.

The startup also noted on Tuesday that the U.K. had driven more Bluesky signups than any other country for five out of the past seven days.

Despite the influx of U.K. users to the decentralized social networking app and X alternative, other new data indicates that it’s still Meta’s Threads, not Bluesky, that’s better poised to challenge X, the Musk-owned social network formerly known as Twitter.

According to a new analysis from digital market intelligence company Similarweb, the impact of U.K.-based users joining Bluesky is still fairly small.

On August 11, Bluesky saw 67,800 U.K.-based daily active users, which although a recent peak, was not the highest-ever usage Bluesky has seen from U.K. users. In January of this year, for example, Bluesky’s app saw more than 100,000 daily active users, making this recent surge less remarkable in that broader context, the firm said.

In addition, Bluesky’s U.K.-based monthly active users were unchanged from June to July, whereas monthly active users were up a slight 8.6% for Threads in the U.K. (Overall, however, the firm had earlier reported that X’s fluctuations in daily and weekly usage were still within normal ranges, despite reports of users fleeing X.)

Meanwhile, the impact of this U.K.-driven shift on X is underwhelming. Though August 11 was one of X’s weakest days of the year, Similarweb said, the Musk-owned app still had 6 million daily active users from the U.K. — far more than either Threads or Bluesky, the data indicates.

Generally speaking, X’s userbase tends to fluctuate, but monthly active users from June to July were up 2.6% in the U.K. and 3.4% in the U.S. That may not be the best time frame to analyze, though, since the stabbing attack that triggered the U.K. riots, which were fueled by online misinformation, took place near the end of July, but Musk’s comments riled up X users and U.K. officials in August.

Still, Similarweb’s analysis of Android data worldwide shows that X is still far ahead of Threads and Bluesky even as of August 12, with 91.0 million global daily active users compared with 34.9 million and 594,700 global daily actives for Threads and Bluesky, respectively. On the web, X.com saw 192.5 million daily web visits on August 12, compared with just 3.7 million for Threads and 616,200 for Bluesky.

That said, X’s lead is wider in the U.S. than it is in the U.K.

X is 5.9 times larger than Threads in the U.S. and just a little more than three times larger in the U.K. in terms of monthly active users. That narrower lead could potentially make it easier for a competitor like Bluesky or Threads to win the U.K. demographic if the switching trend were to grow over time.