Facebook (META) Stock Rises on Threads App Launch. What Next?

The Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) share price has risen 139.68% this year and seems to be headed higher after the recent launch of the Threads app by Instagram to compete with Elon Musk’s Twitter microblogging app. 

The new Threads app by Instagram has already attracted over 10 million users within the first few hours of existence, with the ultimate goal of having over 1 billion users on the platform. The new app reignites the bitter rivalry between Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Elon Musk.

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The new app will not have any advertising streams, but I cannot see why Meta would not monetise it once it has a decent user base. Like all its free apps, including Instagram and Facebook, Meta has found ways to monetise user data. 

A key sign that the Threads app will work similarly to Instagram and Facebook was that the app was not launched in Europe due to privacy concerns, given the GDPR rules that regulate the data companies can collect from their users or customers. 

The new app will be linked to users’ Instagram accounts by allowing users to follow the same people they follow on Instagram. Linking Threads to Instagram is a killer move by Facebook, given that all users need to do is log in using their Instagram accounts and boom, they can follow all the same people they follow on Instagram. 

Meta has been on a roll this year, as evidenced by the sharp rally in its share price. The company launched its Facebook reels product in 2022, which saw significant adoption. Still, the Threads app is on a whole new level and poses a real threat to other social media apps, including Meta’s other apps. 

According to Meta’s head of the global business, Nicola Mendelsohn, the company is still going all in on the Metaverse despite the tepic reception it got from the markets after announcing this significant shift in its business strategy in November 2021. 

However, the Threads app presents a new frontier for Meta, and it remains to be seen how the app shall evolve. 

*This is not investment advice. 

Facebook (META) share price. 

The Meta share price has risen 139.68% since the year started and could be headed higher.