Meta has revealed that Threads has reached the milestone of 130 million active users. The number of users on the social network is a cause for celebration for the company, since the boom in subscribers at launch has not translated into a constant usability. For Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta, Threads could reach a billion users in a few years.
The amount of active users today is higher than the number during the first few weeks of launch. At the time, the social network reached 100 million accounts in just 5 days, beating the record that was held by ChatGPT. The curiosity for the app was huge, but the lack of fundamental features made users give up on Threads — but those 130 million not only the “sorry dog comes back”.
We can list two factors as the reason why Threads regained its moment — its turnaround, just like Rocky Balboa. First, the release of important features for microblogging, such as the following feed, web version, and the repost with comments (same as retweeting). There are still some points to improve on the desktop version and a trending topic, but that should come soon.
Second, the arrival of Threads to European Union member countries in mid-December. Here the analysis is straightforward: Meta launched its social network for a market with 448 million inhabitants. This allows more users to get to know the platform and start using it. As it fixed some problems at launch, the trend is to lose fewer users.
Parallel to this, the trend of its biggest rival, X/Twitter, is losing users. According to analytics firms, Elon Musk’s social network had 121 million active users in October 2023. Musk doesn’t reveal numbers and isn’t even forced to, so there’s no way to nail down whether or not Threads has outperformed the competitor. In the same period, Meta’s social network reached 100 million active users — a gain of 30 million in the last quarter of 2023.
