Meta’s Threads is now more popular than Musk’s X

Meta’s text-based Threads app was named a Twitter-killer when it launched last year, and it now seems the murder has been successfully going on for quite a while – Threads is already bigger than X.

According to estimates by data intelligence platform Apptopia, first reported by Business Insider, Threads has now had more daily active users in the United States than Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, since at least December 2023.

Of course, it helps that Thread posts have now been integrated into Facebook users’ timelines.

But still, at least in Apple’s App Store, Threads is now the third most downloaded free app while X only ranks 41st. In the Google Play Store, Threads is in 12th place among free apps, while X is in 44th place.

The news highlights the struggles that X has been facing in trying to attract new users. The platform has also been plagued by bots and paid subscribers posting spammy content daily. If it’s a town square – as it’s marketed by Musk – the town is rather small, it would seem.

Already in February, X had 27 million daily active users of its mobile app in the US, down 18% from a year earlier, Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm based in San Francisco, recently said.

Threads, on the other hand, is doing much better, reaching an average of 28 million daily active users. This is a 55% increase from December.

Globally, Meta’s app is also growing. The company CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said during the firm’s Q1 2024 earnings call (PDF) that Threads now has more than 150 million monthly active users – up from 130 million in February.

Threads “continues to generally be on the trajectory I hoped to see. My daughters would want me to mention that Taylor Swift is now on Threads – that was a big deal in my house,” said Zuckerberg. Although to be fair, he only mentioned the app once and mostly discussed AI and the metaverse.

Weird decisions might also be hurting X. Recently, a scheme to charge users a fee to be able to post on the platform was floated (and soon killed off), and X is also working on a new TV app – although nobody really asked for an ability to watch X videos on their TVs.