Topline
More than 100 million users have joined Meta’s new Threads platform, a feat the Twitter rival has achieved in less than five days, making the Twitter competitor the fastest-growing online platform in history.
More than 100 million users have signed up for Threads, making it the fastest growing app of all … [+] time.
Key Facts
Threads crossed the 100 million mark early Monday—after being launched across 100 countries on Wednesday evening—according to data from Quiver Quantitative, which tracks the data from the Instagram app.
By achieving the milestone in less than five days, Threads has overtaken ChatGPT’s record, as the OpenAI chatbot had reached the 100 million mark in two months.
On Friday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the app had crossed 70 million signups, which he said was “way beyond our expectations.”
Threads’ record-breaking launch has been aided by a simple sign-up process that requires users to log into the app through their Instagram accounts—which is used to populate their profile details and follow lists.
According to Sensor Tower data, Threads is currently the most downloaded free app in the U.S. on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
Surprising Fact
In November, Twitter owner and executive chair Elon Musk said his platform has nearly 260 million daily active users. At the time, the billionaire claimed that this number was moving upward and added that he sees a “path to Twitter exceeding a billion monthly users in 12 to 18 months.” While Twitter has not publicly announced any details, according to the Wall Street Journal, the platform has been telling advertisers it has a monthly active user base of 535 million. Independent analysis of Twitter’s user base, however, paints a less flattering picture. A forecast by Insider Intelligence projected that Twitter’s active user base would drop from an estimated 368.4 million in 2022 to 335.7 million in 2024. On Threads, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince posted a graph showing twitter.com dropping from the 32nd spot in January to the 40th spot in July in the Cloudflare network’s domain rankings—signaling a drop in visitors. Threads’ signup numbers aren’t directly comparable to Twitter’s active user numbers, as many of the people signing up may not actively use the app. However, Meta’s other platforms like Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp all boast active user bases of more than 2 billion.
Key Background
Despite being widely viewed as a direct competitor to Twitter, the user experience on Threads is different in many key ways. Most significantly, Meta’s app ditches Twitter’s reverse chronological timeline—which displays posts in real-time—with an algorithmic feed similar to Facebook and Instagram. Posts displayed on Threads’ algorithmic timeline also aren’t limited to the accounts the user follows. Threads is also mobile only, at least for the time being. Another major departure from Twitter is Threads’ decision not to promote hard news or political content. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri has defended this decision by saying “any incremental engagement or revenue they might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let’s be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them.”
Further Reading
Threads Won’t Promote Political Or Hard News Content — A Contrast From Twitter (Forbes)
