Threads, the social media platform run by Meta, Facebook's parent company, has surpassed 400 million monthly users two years after its launch, rapidly closing in on X, formerly Twitter, led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Adam Mosseri, chief executive officer of Instagram, said on July 12 that Threads' monthly active users exceeded 400 million. The milestone came about two years after its launch in July 2023 as a rival to X. Mosseri said the platform began as a quirky idea to compete with Twitter but has evolved into a space where a variety of perspectives can be exchanged freely.
Earlier, Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta, said in April that Threads' monthly users had surpassed 350 million, meaning the user base grew by 50 million in one quarter.
Threads' user count is quickly catching up with X. Musk has said X's monthly users are just over 600 million.
According to market research firm Similarweb, Threads' mobile daily users are also approaching X. As of June, Threads' iPhone and Android mobile daily active users were 115.1 million, up 127.8% year over year. Over the same period, X had 132 million, down 15.2% year over year.
However, X still leads by a wide margin in daily visitors via the web. In June, X averaged 145.8 million global web visitors per day, while Threads had only 6.9 million.
Over the past year, Threads has attracted users with new features such as direct messaging (DM), fediverse integration that connects with other social networks, personalized feeds and strengthened artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
Threads is also growing rapidly in Korea, especially among people in their 20s and 30s. According to Mobile Index, Threads' domestic MAU in July was 5.43 million. That is about 2.4 million more than the 3.04 million in July last year. An industry official said Threads, a text-based social network like X, has naturally developed a culture of informal speech among domestic users and is gaining traction mainly with younger people.