Threads is now up to 150 million daily active users, rising from the 100 million DAU that Meta announced back in December, while Threads users are also spending more time in the app, which Meta says is a testament to its evolving AI recommendations engine.
It’s the latest growth milestone for the app, which also has 400 million monthly actives. For comparison, X reportedly has 600 million monthly actives, and 250 million daily users, while its usage has also seen a slight resurgence of late, at least based on its EU usage data.
Though data published last month by app research provider Similarweb suggests that X’s daily usage is in decline, and may not be quite as high as it claims:
Elon and Co. haven’t provided an official update to refute or support this, though either way the fact that Threads is growing so quickly is an indicator of the market demand for a Twitter alternative, with Elon Musk’s changes at the app now known as X prompting many users to find a new online hangout.
Threads is evolving as the place to be in this respect, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also noting that the app is “on track to become the leader in its category.”
That category being short-form, text-based social, of which X and Threads are the main players, along with Bluesky, Mastodon, and some smaller alternatives.
As per Zuckerberg:
“Across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, our AI recommendation systems are delivering higher quality and more relevant content, which led to 5% more time spent on Facebook in Q3 and 10% on Threads.”
The Facebook engagement increase isn’t a major shift, based on Meta’s previous performance update (Zuckerberg also once again noted the rise of video engagement on Facebook and IG), but a 10% rise in Threads engagement is significant, and worthy of note.
Because Threads, which is built on the back of your Instagram engagement graph, has thus far been pretty bad at highlighting relevant content, and showing you conversations that might want to engage with in the app.
Many Threads recommendations still relate to your IG activity, which, for most people, is likely very different from the content that you want to see on Threads. But the Threads team is working on this. Threads chief Connor Hayes says that your Instagram graph is now a lesser factor in dictating your Threads recommendations, while his team has also been developing new ways to uncover posts that drive conversation and engagement.
Those include topic tags, communities, and will soon also incorporate its algorithm control option, which will give you more ways to dictate the topics that you’re interested in (and not).
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri says that they’re currently “exploring what a version of this would look like on Threads,” which could give you another way to help refine the algorithm to show you more of what you’re interested in in the app.
Of course, that’s dependent on people actually using it, and really, given evolving usage habits, Threads will need to get better at automated detection, rather than hoping for manual guidance from users. But a 10% increase in time spent is an endorsement of its efforts on this front already, and it does seem like Threads is on track to challenge X, and potentially overtake it at some stage.
Meta CFO Susan Li also noted that Threads ads are now available globally, while as we reported earlier this week, Meta’s also rolling out new ad formats, including video ads, in the app.
