Zuck wasn’t lying about Threads’ growth momentum.
As flagged by Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg in yesterday’s Q2 earnings call, Threads is now up to 200 million monthly active users, as confirmed today by Threads chief Adam Mosseeri.
Which means that Threads has taken just over a year to reach this key milestone. Which many, of course, will dismiss, because it’s piggybacking off of Instagram, by linking the two apps. But even so, profiles created and active users are very different, and the fact that Threads has 200 million people participating in the app each month is notable in its own right, no matter how you view it.
Though even more notable here is the growth momentum, as noted by Zuck.
Because in addition to the topline usage figure, Threads’ growth rate has also increased significantly in recent weeks, based on the usage data shared by Meta.
As you can see in this chart, Threads is actually gaining growth momentum over time, based on the data shared by the company. To clarify, Threads would have been growing steadily in the flat periods signified here as well, but using only Meta’s milestone figures as a guide, you can see how Threads has gained a lot more users in the last month than it had in the preceding three.
To recap, Threads reached 100 million active users just in October 2023, before rising to 130 million users in February this year, seven months after launch, then 150 million in April. The app then reported reaching 175 million users early last month.
Based on averages, that means that Threads was adding 7.5 million new users per month between October 2023 and February this year, which then increased to 9 million more actives per month up till July.
But in the last four weeks, according to these figures, Threads has added 25 million more MAU. That means that Threads’ growth momentum increased by almost three times in July, a very positive sign for the future potential of the app.
So what’s driving that growth?
Well, I’d suspect part of it is the U.S. election, because even though Meta has an aversion to politics, many people are still discussing major events, like the switch from Biden to Harris for the 2024 election campaign.
That change has sparked a new level of vitriol from right-wing pundits, who are now gaining more and more traction on X, while the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump (July 13) also marked a significant shift in that app, as owner Elon Musk announced his public endorsement of Trump as the next commander in chief.
That may have pushed more people away from X, and over to Threads instead, while the Olympics has also sparked new interest in real-time discussion, which is rising on Threads.
And maybe, with more and more commentators posting to Threads instead, that’s boosting interest, which is seeing Threads gain even more momentum as the discussion venue of choice continues to shift.
Threads' growth increase is significant, and it’ll be interesting to see when it reaches the 250 million MAU mark as an indicator of rising interest. Or not.
To be clear, Threads is still a fair way off of X’s usage, as X has 250 million daily active users and 500 million monthly participants. So Threads is currently at around 40% of X’s audience, but that’s still significant, and again, momentum is an important indicator at this stage.
Maybe, then, the tide is turning towards Threads, and as the platform adds more and more trending topic discovery features, that could help to further fan those flames.
Again, we won’t definitively know until Threads reaches the next usage milestone, but if that happens in the next couple of months, you can bet that Elon and Co. will be publishing some new “active user nanoseconds” type stats that they proclaim shows that X remains well in the lead.
But if that momentum rises, the signs will start to become very clear that Threads is becoming the place to be, for a significant portion of real-time social media users. People always gravitate to where the conversation is happening, and there are signs that Threads now has a real opportunity to take a much bigger portion of online attention.